Carol Aghajanian, MD, from the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, discusses the difficulties with a gold standard clinical trial endpoint in ovarian cancer.

The oncology community would like to see a gold standard of improved overall survival or at least a good way to measure clinical benefit, Aghajanian says. Patients with ovarian cancer live for a long time, receive multiple lines of therapy, and often cross over, in a sense, to receive therapies in the same class.

These factors make it difficult to measure overall survival.

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Dr. Aghajanian on Ovarian Cancer Trial Endpoints

Carol Aghajanian, MD, from the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, discusses the treatment of ovarian cancer with PARP inhibitors.

At the 2013 American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) Meeting, Aghajanian anticipated the confirmation of the activity of PARP inhibitors, such as olaparib. Activity is likely to be seen in the most common type of ovarian cancer, high grade serous ovarian cancer.

Though phase I and phase II trials are currently underway, the oncology community is looking forward to the launching of phase III trials in different states of ovarian cancers. Upcoming trials will analyze PARP inhibitors given with and following chemotherapy as well as a maintenance therapy. New trials will also employ biomarkers to determine which groups of patients will benefit most from PARP inhibitors.

Carol Aghajanian, MD

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Dr. Aghajanian on Ovarian Cancer Trial Endpoints

Dr. Aghajanian on PARP Inhibitors for Ovarian Cancer