Summary of the 2011 Annual Meeting on Women's Cancers.

The 2011 Annual Meeting on Women's Cancers was held in Orlando Florida from Friday March 5 to Wednesday March 9. The document below outlines only some of the interesting materials presented during the scientific sessions of the meeting. Seminal Abstracts were again presented at this year'smeeting. These represent important studies in our field that have previously been presented at National and International meetings. While not specifically reviewed here they are referred to when augmenting presented material at the 2011 SGO meeting. The summary below is presented thematically and the abstract numbers are as referenced in Gynecologic Oncology Volume 120, Issue 1, Supplement 1, March 2011, edited by Daniel Clarke-Pearson, MD and Robert Bristow MD, MBA. TheHughBaberAward lecturewaspresented toDr. Parham forwork done in Zambia related to cervical cancer in HIV-infected women. This inspiring presentation outlined a programmatic evaluation of the firstever large-scale public sector cervical cancer prevention program in Africa. Nurseswere trained to conduct screeningwith visual inspection, aided by digital cervicography to facilitate same-visit cryotherapy for probably in situ lesions or referral for further diagnosis. Over 21,000 women were screened from 2006 to 2008. Sixteen percent of women with HIV referred for further diagnosis were found to have invasive cervical cancer, 69% of which were early stage. Using conditional probability modeling, it was estimated that the program prevented 142 cervical cancer deaths (range: 96–238) in 6572 HIV+ women, or 1 cervical cancer death prevented for every 46 women screened. This work demonstrates the results of concerted efforts for cervical cancer prevention programs, coordinated with HIV/AIDS care programs and serves as a platform for future programs (Abstract 4). A seminal abstract previously presented at the International Gynecologic Cancer Society describes the use of another strategy for treatment of pre-invasive cervical disease: photodynamic therapy (PDT). Focused on developing less extirpative methods of treating non-invasive disease the authors described using PDT for CIN3 and early stage cervical cancer. 520 cases (including 342 carcinoma in situ and 24micro-invasive lesions)were treatedwith a complete response rate of 97% following single PDT procedures (99% CR for dysplasia, 97% for MIC and 92% for invasive lesions). This demonstrates emerging strategies for treatment of pre-invasive and early invasive disease that might effectively be applied to at risk populations.