Dr. Erickson on PARP Inhibitor Maintenance Therapy in BRCA-Mutated Ovarian Cancer

Britt Erickson, MD, assistant professor, Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Women's Health (OBGYN), University of Minnesota Medical School, discusses the benefit of PARP inhibitor maintenance therapy in patients with BRCA-mutated ovarian cancer.

Several trials have confirmed that this approach benefits patients with BRCA-mutated ovarian cancer, according to Erickson. As such, all patients with a germline or somatic BRCA mutation should be offered maintenance therapy; however, the optimal agent to leverage is still unclear, Erickson adds. 

Clinical trials continue to demonstrate impressive hazard ratios (HRs) with PARP inhibitors in patients whose tumors harbor BRCA mutations. For example, the phase 3 SOLO-1 trial (NCT01844986), which investigated maintenance olaparib (Lynparza) in patients with BRCA-mutated ovarian cancer, demonstrated a HR of 0.30, which signified an improvement in progression-free survival over placebo, Erickson says. Overall survival data have not been released yet, but the benefit in the up-front setting for this patient population is encouraging, Erickson concludes.