A combination of cediranib and olaparib nearly doubled progression-free survival compared to olaparib alone in a phase II trial of patients with recurrent ovarian cancer.
The study enrolled 90 patients with platinum-sensitive ovarian cancer. Median PFS was nearly 18 months for women receiving the combined therapy, compared to nine months for those receiving olaparib.
In women whose ovarian tumors lacked mutations in the genes BRCA1 or BRCA2, the median PFS for those treated with the combination therapy was 16.5 months compared to 5.7 months for those treated with olaparib. In women whose tumors did carry BRCA mutations, the median PFS for the combined-therapy group was 19.4 months, compared to 16.5 for the olaparib group.
Severe side effects to treatment were more common in the cediranib-and-olaparib group, with fatigue, diarrhea, and hypertension the most frequent. Data from the study was published in The Lancet Oncology.
Two phase III clinical trials comparing the combination therapy to other drug regimens plan to begin enrolling patients early next year, and both will be supported by NCI and run through the NRG Oncology cooperative group. One will compare cediranib and olaparib to chemotherapy in women with platinum-sensitive ovarian cancer. The other will compare olaparib alone, olaparib and cediranib, and chemotherapy in patients with platinum-resistant ovarian cancer.
Cediranib is an angiogenesis inhibitor, while Olaparib is a poly (ADP-ribose) polymerase inhibitor. Both drugs, used as single agents, had been shown to be active in women with recurrent ovarian cancers, and, as a pair, were found to be active and tolerable to patients in a phase I clinical trial.
This study was funded in part by NCI’s Cancer Therapy Evolution Program and supported by an American Recovery and Reinvestment Act grant through NIH (3 U01 CA062490-16S2).
