VELIA/GOG-3005 Trial Update on PARP Inhibitor in Ovarian Cancer
Posted: Wednesday, October 23, 2019
According to the international phase III VELIA/GOG-3005 trial results published in The New England Journal of Medicine, initial treatment of the PARP inhibitor veliparib plus chemotherapy followed by veliparib maintenance therapy significantly improved progression-free survival in patients with newly diagnosed, metastatic high-grade serous ovarian cancer. Robert L. Coleman, MD, of The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, and colleagues also presented these findings at the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) Congress 2019 in Barcelona (Abstract LBA3; see report on JNCCN 360). The investigators noted that the independent role of veliparib during induction therapy without veliparib maintenance is less clear.
“This is the first clinical trial to use a PARP inhibitor combined with chemotherapy for newly diagnosed ovarian cancer patients,” said Dr. Coleman, in an MD Anderson press release. “These results further validate the role of this class of drug in the treatment of patients with ovarian cancer and offer a new therapeutic asset that can be initiated with the start of their adjuvant chemotherapy treatment.”
A total of 1,140 patients from 202 sites in 10 countries were randomly assigned to one of three treatments. Patients in the control group received chemotherapy plus placebo followed by placebo maintenance, whereas the veliparib-combination group received chemotherapy plus veliparib followed by placebo maintenance. Finally, the veliparib-throughout group received chemotherapy plus veliparib followed by veliparib maintenance.
In the BRCA-mutation population, patients who received the combination therapy followed by veliparib maintenance therapy had a median progression-free survival of 34.7 months, compared with 22 months in the control arm of chemotherapy plus placebo followed by placebo maintenance. For patients with a homologous recombination deficiency, the progression- free survival with the combination therapy was 31.9 months, compared with 20.5 months for patients on control therapy.
Disclosure: The study authors’ disclosure information can be found at nejm.org.
