Dr David M. O'Malley on Identifying Which Patients Will Respond to PARP Inhibitors

We're getting better at identifying which patients with ovarian cancer will respond to poly ADP-ribose polymerase (PARP) inhibitors, but we have a long way to go, said David M. O'Malley, MD, professor of medicine, Department of Gynecology, and director of Gynecologic Oncology Clinical Research at the James Cancer Center, Ohio State University.

Transcript

Are we getting better at identifying which patients with ovarian cancer will respond better to PARP inhibitors?

I think we’re getting better, but we still have a long way to go. Between the BRCA testing, other HRD [homologous recombination deficiency] genes and mutations, as well as, for example, methylation of the BRCA, RAD51C and RAD51D, we’re identifying more and more patients that clearly should have PARP as a maintenance program. We will continue to identify those patients, for example, of loss of heterozygosity or the HRD positive patients that will help us separate those who we should be treating with PARP versus antivascular therapy.

In addition, with some of the ongoing phase 3 trials, we may find that combination therapy, particularly in those that are wildtype, will be our best path forward.