A new promising treatment for cervical cancer?

Over the past few months there have been reports by the BBC,  Guardian, and Sky News, covering a potential “breakthrough” treatment for cervical cancer, which is based on chemotherapy drug treatments that already exist.

In the UK, immunisation programmes against the human papilloma virus (HPV) infection, are used as a public health measure to lower the number of cervical cancer cases arising from HPV infections. Smear test campaigns in women aged 25-64 years are used to diagnose early changes in the cervix.

Cervical cancer – the fourth leading cancer impacting women worldwide – was diagnosed in up to 604,000 women in 2020, with relapse occurring in 2/3 women after receiving radiotherapy as the standard treatment. These statistics highlight a real need for new safe and effective treatments for cervical cancer.

Research funded by Cancer Research UK (CRUK) at multiple NHS hospitals has attempted to discover new treatment combinations for treating patients with cervical cancer. The researchers focused on using chemotherapy medication before starting patients on radiotherapy. The goal of this research was to prevent the spread of cervical cancer and improve patient survival.

What did the study involve?

The clinical trial investigated two chemotherapy treatments, cisplatin and carboplatin, that are currently prescribed for other cancers. The team divided patients into two groups with an equal number of patients receiving either cisplatin or carboplatin treatment before radiotherapy (250 women). There was also a second group of patients receiving the current standard treatment of radiotherapy only (250 women).

What did the researchers conclude?

One of the key findings from this clinical study was that patient survival without developing further cancer, increased from 64% in patients receiving the current standard radiotherapy treatment to 73% in patients treated with chemotherapy before their radiotherapy, representing better outcomes. After five years, 80% of the patients treated with the combined chemotherapy and radiotherapy survived, compared to 72% of those who received radiotherapy only. The conclusions from this research were that all patients should be prescribed both chemotherapy and radiotherapy for the treatment of cervical cancer. Another positive aspect of this study was that the chemotherapies tested are available and accessible in developing countries, making these findings globally relevant to all nations.

How did the media cover this study?

Since its publication, at the time of writing, the BBC,  Guardian, and Sky News are the main outlets reporting the findings from this clinical investigation. The headlines summarised the key finding from the study, highlighting the potential for these chemotherapies to improve outcomes in patients with cervical cancer. The BBC coverage of this study under the heading “Biggest cervical cancer drug advance in 20 years hailed”, provided a balanced overview of the study based on the presented statistics from the clinical trial.

Media coverage of this clinical trial through all media channels was well-balanced and included quotes from the clinical researchers involved in the study. These quotes were generally in agreement that the conclusions from the study seemed reasonable. The Guardian quoted the lead investigator from University College London (Dr Mary McCormack) in their coverage, hailing the findings in the trial as the biggest improvement in over 20 years. The BBC coverage of this trial quoted the executive director of research and innovation at Cancer Research UK (Dr Iain Foulkes) who highlighted the importance of administering chemotherapy and its timing, to improve patient outcomes.

A limitation of the BBC, Sky News and Guardian coverage of this study was that while they reported the type of side effects experienced by patients, they did not communicate the percentage of patients experiencing side effects from the new combined chemotherapy and radiotherapy treatment. In the original study, up to 59% of patients being treated experienced serious side effects from the treatment. Another limitation of the media coverage by all reports, was that their conclusions were very broad and suggested these findings applied to all cervical cancers, whereas cervical cancer has many different stages. However, they did imply this by mentioning that not all patients receiving the new treatment would necessarily respond to this ground-breaking finding.

Conclusions

Overall, media coverage of this publication was carried out in an objective manner and with a good balance of interpreting the science and presenting quotes from researchers and cancer organisations. In terms of the publication, the clinical study reported is one of the largest studies of its type, meaning that the findings from this trial are applicable to a large number of patients with cervical cancer. Women’s health, and specifically cervical cancer remains under-researched, so findings from this research will be useful in paving the path for future work investigating new treatment options for gynaecological cancers.