The 2021 annual ESMO meeting featured several presentations with the potential to shift the standard of care in gynaecological cancers. In cervical cancer, Keynote-826 identified pembrolizumab + chemotherapy (with or without bevacizumab) as a potential new standard of care for patients with persistent, recurrent, or metastatic cervical cancer. In addition, also the antibody drug conjugate tisotumab vedotin showed encouraging and durable anti-tumour activity in this setting. In the field of the ovarian cancer, PARP inhibition again walked away with most of the attention, but also the glucocorticoid receptor modulator relacorilant and combination therapy with the immune checkpoint inhibitor atezolizumab and bevacizumab yielded interesting data. Also for patients with advanced endometrial cancer, ESMO 2021 proved to be of interest, with important updates on the use of pembrolizumab in this setting.

(BELG J MED ONCOL 2021;15(8):428–35)