Matthew Borst, MD, director, GYN/Oncology, Banner Good Samaritan Regional Medical Center, clinical assistant professor of medicine, University of Arizona, Arizona Oncology, discusses homologous recombination deficiency (HRD) in patients with ovarian cancer.

 genes which help repair double-strand DNA breaks that people encounter in daily life. If a patient has germline 

 abnormalities, they have an intrinsic vulnerability to not repair double-strand breaks. About 50% of high-grade serous ovarian cancers have HRD or 

That is something that physicians can take advantage of therapeutically by adding a PARP inhibitor, which inhibits the ability to repair single-strand breaks. Over time, the tumor cells accumulate multiple single-strand breaks, which will convert to double-strand breaks because they lack intact or wild-type 

 capabilities. Subsequently, the tumor cells preferentially die, says Borst.

Matthew Borst, MD

Articles

Dr. Borst on Homologous Recombination Deficiency in Patients With Ovarian Cancer