The Spanish Ovarian Cancer Research Group (GEICO)
It was established in 1999 as a non-profit scientific association for two main purposes:
Conduct and coordinate clinical research studies in gynaecological cancer, with special attention to ovarian cancer.
Organize scientific meetings, congresses and symposia with objectives relating to teaching and the dissemination of the studies carried out.
Initially, the members of the Group were medical oncologists, but it is currently made up of different specialists from around 70 hospitals in Spain engaged in gynaecological oncology research (oncologists, gynaecologists, pathologists, molecular biologists, etc).
In 2003 GEICO joined the Gynecologic Cancer InterGroup (GCIG), an international platform of cooperative groups engaged in gynaecological cancer research. Since then it has cooperated in design, conduct and recruitment for international ovarian, cervical and endometrial cancer clinical trials.
Criteria for the use of pegylated liposomal doxorubicin (Caelyx) in the case of market supply shortages
The Spanish agency of medicine and health care products has published on 14th February 2012 a press release with a plan for distribution and controlled access to Caelyx, which has been agreed with a group of experts (oncologists and hematologists), in the event of limited availability of the number of vials during a certain period of time.
Participation in an Advanced Cervical Cancer clinical trial with the Gynecologic Oncology Group
In April 2011 a Phase III First Line Advanced Cervical Cancer clinical trial, designed by the Gynecologic Oncology Group (GOG), was conducted in several GEICO centers. It is the first collaboration GEICO makes with this prestigious American cooperative group, with the goal of improving treatment efficacy, evaluating a combination of chemotherapy without platin and the addition of bevacizumab. For more information, see the Clinical Research section.
GEICO publishes study of intraperitoneal chemotherapy in ovarian cancer
A GEICO study published in July 2011 in the International Journal of Gynecologic Cancer, led by Dr. Oaknin, has evaluated a treatment of intravenous and intraperitoneal chemotherapy (modified from the published protocol by Dr. Armstrong in 2006) in a phase III ovarian cancer with optimal cytoreduction. According to our experience, this treatment has shown less toxicity and a greater level of completion than the original.