Providing High-Quality Ovarian Cancer Care

In spite of the declining rate of ovarian cancer during the past 30 years, treating it remains challenging. Experts estimate that 21,410 people will be diagnosed with ovarian cancer in 2021, and 13,700 will die from the disease. An advanced-stage diagnosis has a particularly poor prognosis and is difficult to treat, resulting in a low survival rate. 

Given the difficulty of managing patients with a high disease burden who are often undergoing toxic treatment regimens and managing multiple office visits, maintaining high-quality ovarian cancer care can be a challenge. The complexities of treating ovarian cancer require a multidisciplinary team approach to optimally address all aspects of cancer care delivery. This need is even more essential when patients are being treated with personalized medicine. 

Recognizing a gap in practice guidelines, ACCC assembled a group of volunteer experts who co-authored an article recently published in CANCER that describes the steps cancer centers can take to improve the quality of care for patients with advanced epithelial ovarian cancer. The article’s authors—who represent multiple roles in the multidisciplinary cancer care team—describe the core components of high-quality care, including care coordination and patient education, prevention and screening, diagnosis and initial management, treatment planning, disease surveillance, equity in care, and quality of life.  

The article’s authors describe barriers to the implementation of high-quality care as well as recommendations for how to overcome those barriers. The article acts as a resource guide for multidisciplinary cancer care practices and programs that want to deliver quality-directed care to patients and their families. The authors note that navigator-driven and person-centric programs are essential for this patient population, and that such programs should incorporate multidisciplinary, team-based care; access to clinical trials; and the provision of ancillary services including genetic counseling, supportive care, fertility preservation, and nutritional counseling. 

Learning Opportunities 

In Spring 2021, ACCC joined forces with the Society of Gynecologic Oncology (SGO) to help better educate clinicians and other members of the multidisciplinary cancer care team about using personalized medicine to optimize outcomes for patients with ovarian cancer. As part of their partnership, ACCC and SGO are creating four accredited webinars and a series of additional educational resources on how to best deliver personalized medicine for ovarian cancer in a community setting. 

Thus far in their partnership, ACCC and SGO have created a podcast in which a physician, genetic counselor, and patient discuss patient perspectives on genetic testing for ovarian cancer. Two physician-led on-demand webinars discuss important issues in ovarian cancer care.  

The first webinar, Perfecting Placement of PARPS: Preventing Progression of Ovarian Cancer deals with PARP inhibitor approvals in ovarian cancer treatment. A panel of physician experts describes how to order germline and somatic testing for BRCA mutations and homologous recombination (HR) status, and they address how to sequence PARP inhibitors and mitigate side effects.  

The second webinar, Real-World Palliative Care in GYN Oncology: WHO (can do it), WHAT (is it), WHEN (to start), WHERE (can we do this) and WHY (is it so important), is a roundtable discussion with a range of experts from academic centers to small community practices in which participants present examples of integrating palliative care in a variety of settings.  

In future months, the ACCC and SGO partnership will produce two additional accredited webinars.  

On January 20, 2022, there will be webinar on immunotherapy/emergent target therapy, and in April 2022 there will be a webinar on care coordination and selecting patients for surgical vs. non-surgical intervention. 

Additional upcoming non-CE educational resources include a podcast on managing toxicity, TKIs, and immunotherapies. Another resource in development is a series of PARP flashcards, which will include information on FDA-approved use, off-label use, drug data, dosing, administration, and side effects.