Peyton T. Taylor, Jr., MS, MD
Gynecologic Oncology clinical trials
The investigator is the Medical Director of the Cancer Center and the immediate past Vice President of the Society of Gynecologic Oncologists. Dr.Taylor was responsible for conceptualizing and implementing the multidisciplinary team clinics that greatly enhanced our ability to recruit patients and increase clinical trials accrual. He was also responsible for securing adjacent space for our Clinical Trials Office. He also developed internal tracking mechanisms that helped us to identify patients on clinical trials. As the Medical Director, he has been a strong advocate for trials and team based care. He is actively involved in clinical trials in the various gynecologic malignancies as a member of the Gynecologic Oncology Group (former member of the Ovarian Cancer Committee) and as the national and local PI on a pharmaceutical company-sponsored trial involving the monoclonal antibody to CA 125 [ (OvaRex® (MA-B43.13)]. The investigator was the local PI on the initial national trial utilizing this antibody as "remission consolidation" in women after initial surgery and initial chemotherapy for Stage III/IV ovarian cancer. This trial failed to show a difference in those women receiving the antibody and those receiving placebo. However, a subset analysis demonstrated a potential benefit in a subset of women who had successful initial surgery ('optimal Stage III/IV disease), a rapid decline in CA 125 serum levels after initiation of platinum/taxane combination chemotherapy and who were in clinical, CT scan remission with normal levels of CA 125. The present trial is a pivotal randomized placebo-controlled Phase III trial in the population of patients defined by the aforementioned subset analysis of the initial trial. The investigator has also been involved in numerous collaborative studies with other clinical and laboratory investigators, both at UVa and other institutions.