Cervical Cancer and Novel Interventions

Dear Colleagues,

Cervical cancer affects more than 500,000 women worldwide. In recent years, virally driven malignancies such as cervical cancer also represent an increasingly attractive target for immune modulatory therapies. Indeed, vaccines against the most common oncogenic genotypes of the human papilloma virus (HPV) have already demonstrated profound efficacy in the primary prevention of cervical cancer. The years of worldwide HPV vaccination programs coupled with cervical cancer screening programs sponsored by government and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) are finally yielding quantifiable decreases globally in cervical cancer incidence and even death. In addition to these immunization measures that harness the immune system to prevent cancer, an advanced understanding of the immune system and its response to cancer growth and metastasis has produced an expanding set of novel cancer immunotherapies (CITs), some of which can effectively treat and, in some cases, eliminate established cancers, including cervical cancer.

In this Special Issue of the European Journal of Gynaecological Oncology, authors will share their research focusing on novel treatment strategies for cervical cancer that advance our understanding of the interplay between the host response to tumor initiation and progression. Studies may also focus on how predictive biomarkers can be utilized to tailor novel and existing therapies and/or vaccines (preventative or therapeutic) to optimize clinical outcomes. Because of the global nature of cervical cancer, special consideration will be given to studies that present and employ novel research methods to study cervical cancer in diverse resource settings.

Dr. Yvonne G. Lin, Prof. Ritu Salani and Assis. Prof. Megan Swanson

Guest Editors