SalvOvar 3rd Annual Meeting: “Restoring hope, salvaging lives”
September 11, 2025 — Oncopole, Toulouse, France
The third annual SalvOvar meeting convened leading clinicians, researchers and patient-advocates on September 11, 2025 at the Oncopole campus in Toulouse to advance a pragmatic clinical trial project improving outcomes for patients with poor-prognosis ovarian cancer following neoadjuvant chemotherapy. Dr. Benoit You, led this one-day meeting brought together workpackage leaders Dr. Julian Perron, Dr. Alexandra Dima, Dr. Gwenael Ferron and Dr. Alexandra Leary as well as other leaders to review progress across clinical workpackages, strengthen international partnerships and set recruitment targets for the coming year.
Key highlights
SalvOvar confirmed an upcoming publication in a Sage Journal, marking an important milestone in the dissemination of the project’s early results.
Current network scope: 69 participating sites across multiple countries (including new additions UK and Israel), with 180 patients pre-screened to date. The meeting reiterated the priority to expand both country participation and patient recruitment.
SalvOvar welcomes its new partner, Cancer Patients Europe, which will take the lead in communicating to patients and policymakers on the project’s results and recommendations.
Scientific and operational priorities
Workpackage leads presented progress and near-term deliverables across the project’s major strands. Dr. Alexandra Dima from Workpackage 3 — focused on determinants of clinical decision-making — is preparing a set of publications slated for release in October and emphasizes systematic integration of patients at every step of clinical research. The first patient interview conducted for this patient-integration work was performed by Thibaut Thierry, underlining SalvOvar’s commitment to patient-centred methods.
Dr. Alexandra Leary from Workpackage 5 highlighted an ongoing international survey on HRD (homologous recombination deficiency) testing and access to maintenance therapies, and organisers encouraged wider responses to better map global heterogeneity in testing and therapeutic access.
Training, surgeon engagement and communications
Under the leadership of Dr. Gwenaël Ferron, Workpackage 4, has developed a dedicated surgical training initiative that will continue to be promoted via Oncostream. A webcast for gynecological oncology surgeons is planned to ensure standardized surgical approaches and broader dissemination of practical skills. The Oncostream hub was recommended as the central training resource (https://www.oncostream.com/fr/home
Workpackage 8 will extend its remit to partner with Cancer Patients Europe (CPE) to co-develop patient-facing communications and policy-oriented materials to support patient advocacy and policymaker engagement at project close.
Collaboration, patient groups and next steps
SalvOvar continues to nurture ties with patient organisations—Loto OdV and ALTo (Lotta al Tumore ovarico) were explicitly thanked for their contributions and asked to review drafts of social media posts mentioning them, reflecting a collaborative and respectful approach to patient-group engagement.
Operational next steps include clarifying the regulatory approvals required once CEEGOG is in place, finalising the technical details of the REGENOVAR linkage, widening site participation (targeting additional countries) and increasing enrollment to meet the project’s clinical goals.
Acknowledgements and attendees
The meeting listed a broad array of contributors from clinical, research and patient advocacy communities, including Dr. Benoit You, Dr. Julian Peron, Dr. Gwenael Ferron, Dr. Alexandra Leary, Dr. Alexandra Dima and many others whose ongoing engagement is powering the programme forward. The collective tagline — “restoring hope, salvaging lives” — captured the meeting’s spirit and mission.
