Dr. Burris on the Exploration of PARP Inhibitors in TNBC

Howard A. “Skip” Burris, III, MD, FASCO, FACP, chief medical officer and president of Clinical Operations at Sarah Cannon Research Institute, and a 2014 Giant of Cancer Care^® in Drug Development, discusses the exploration of PARP inhibitors in triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC).

The competition among the various PARP inhibitors under exploration makes for exciting clinical trials, according to Burris. Several efforts are being made to integrate these biologics into the treatment of patients with diseases such as TNBC. PARP inhibitors are very effective in those who have inherited or acquired BRCA-type mutations, or those who have homologous recombination repair deficiency.

Molecular profiling with next-generation sequencing is increasingly being used to identify these patients who are likely to achieve benefit from the addition of PARP inhibitors, adds Burris. The agents have been fairly well tolerated. Several approaches are examining the addition of PARP inhibitors to the TNBC treatment armamentarium, concludes Burris.