Oncology is the study of cancer and an oncologist is a doctor who specializes in treating cancer. Medical oncologists treat cancer with chemotherapy, hormonal therapies, biological therapies, and other targeted treatments. People often think of the medical oncologist as their primary cancer doctor. Breast and gynecological cancers (ovarian, uterine and cervical cancer) have been a very active area of clinical research in recent years.
Parexel is committed to fighting women's cancer and has seen significant progress with the approval of several new drugs for HER2+ breast cancer, as well as triple negative breast cancer. However, there remains a persistent need for more effective drugs, particularly for triple negative breast cancer, where we have seen the first approval of immunotherapy and a new antibody-drug conjugate. A better understanding of resistance mechanisms in hormone-sensitive (HR+) breast cancer has led to the approval of new targeted therapies, and several others are under investigation. Ovarian cancer represents an ongoing challenge, with a very high rate of recurrence after initial surgery and chemotherapy.
Global post-chemotherapy maintenance therapy studies conducted by Parexel have significantly increased the amount of time before progression, using a class of drugs called “PARP inhibitors”, taking advantage of the inability of cancer cells to repair DNA defects, creating thus a “synthetic lethality”.Oncology is an important field that has made great strides in improving women's health outcomes. With continued research and commitment to fighting women's cancers, we can continue to make progress in this area.
