While precision medicine has been a modern go-to approach by physicians in various malignancies, it is demonstrating a particular benefit in ovarian cancer, especially using the method for clinical trial enrollment and in determining whether patients are eligible to receive treatment with PARP inhibitors, according to Douglas A. Levine, MD.
For example, updated findings of a phase II trial presented at the 2017 ASCO Annual Meeting demonstrated that the combination of the PARP inhibitor olaparib (Lynparza) and the angiogenesis inhibitor cediranib maleate continued to show superior progression-free survival (PFS) versus olaparib alone for women with BRCA-negative recurrent platinum-sensitive ovarian cancer.
In the updated analysis, which was conducted after 67 PFS events, median PFS continued to favor the combination over monotherapy at 16.5 months versus 8.2 months, respectively (HR, 0.50; P = .007). Specifically, in patients without a known germline BRCA mutation, the updated median PFS was still superior in the cediranib/olaparib arm compared with monotherapy at 23.7 months versus 5.7 months (HR, 0.32; P = .002).
Additionally, an ongoing phase II trial is exploring the safety and efficacy of TPIV200/huFR-1, a multi-epitope antifolate receptor vaccine in combination with the PD-L1 inhibitor durvalumab (Imfinzi) in patients with platinum-resistant ovarian cancer (NCT02764333).
In an interview with OncLive, Levine, professor, Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, director, Division of Gynecologic Oncology, NYU Langone’s Perlmutter Cancer Center, shared his insight on how the ovarian cancer landscape has developed a more personalized treatment approach. Levine co-chaired the 2017 OncLive® State of the Science SummitTM on Treatment Options in Ovarian Cancer, where he discussed the topic in greater detail.
OncLive: Can you provide an overview of your lecture?
Levine: I talked about incorporating precision medicine into gynecologic cancers, particularly in ovarian cancer. I began by talking about different sequencing methods and how far we’ve come with sequencing from the Human Genome Project to The Cancer Genome Atlas Project and the application of sequencing in precision medicine in daily clinical care. Specifically, we gave some examples of how to use precision medicine to direct people toward clinical trials, both for ovarian cancer and endometrial cancer, and how to use precision medicine to stratify patients for treatment with PARP inhibitors.
To read this full interview in The Clearity Portal, please click here.