Katharina Buczek
In recent years, though, new PARP inhibitors have proven highly successful as a maintenance treatment used after cytostatic therapy and surgery among newly diagnosed ovarian cancer patients.
PARP inhibitor therapy can extend patients’ survival time and add disease-free years onto their timeline. According to Farkkila, some patients who had been diagnosed with advanced ovarian cancer may even be “considered cured” in coming years– all thanks to the drug.
The genetic test was developed by the research team with the assistance of machine learning. In essence, it is able to reliably identify patients with tumors that have specific gene defects– which are typical of ovarian cancer.
Approximately half of all ovarian cancers have a deficiency located in a distinct DNA repair pathway. In turn, cancer cells that have this deficiency are not able to successfully repair breakages in the DNA double-strand– which causes DNA lesions to accumulate.
However, these lesions are the result of a deficiency in the HRD– or the homologous recombination DNA repair pathway. So, it is these specific types of tumors that are responsive to PARP inhibitors.
“Clinical trials have shown that patients with HRD tumors have a strong response to PARP inhibitors, while the response of other patients is poor,” said Fernando Perez, a doctoral researcher from the University of Helsinki.
So, these study results displayed how every cancer type is associated with varying characteristics of HRD-related genetic lesions. And developing a genetic test that was optimized for ovarian cancer was a critical step in the advancement of therapy precision for this cancer type.
“The gene test and the algorithms are now freely available and can be used in clinical care and trials to guide the treatment of ovarian cancer,” Perez said.
To read the study’s complete findings, which have since been published in NPJ Precision Oncology, visit the link here.
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