PARP Inhibitor Rucaparib Effectively Treats Men with Advanced Prostate Cancer

By Rob Dillard - Last Updated: August 17, 2020

The findings of an international clinical trial found that men with advanced prostate cancer who have mutated BRCA1/BRCA2 genes can be treated successfully with the targeted poly (ADP-ribose) polymerase inhibitor rucaparib, which recently became FDA approved. The study was published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology®.

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In this phase II study (TRITON2), researchers assessed the safety and efficacy of rucaparib in treating men treat men with mCRPC who are predisposed to prostate cancer because of their genetic profile. Men whose cancer had progressed after completing hormone therapy and chemotherapy were eligible to participate. The University of Chicago Medicine Comprehensive Cancer Center was the second lead site internationally to enroll patients to this practice-changing study, which recruited 115 patients whose genetic screening revealed abnormalities in their BRCA genes. The patients were administered 600 mg of rucaparib twice a day. The results showed the objective response rate was 41%. Over half of the patients (53.9%) had improvements in their prostate-specific antigen (PSA) levels. Moreover, the researchers noted that in addition to demonstrating a significant anti-cancer response in mCRPC patients that had progressed on two prior lines of therapy, the rucaparib treatment had a manageable safety profile.

“There is a critical need for personalized medicines to effectively treat advanced prostate cancer,” said Akash Patnaik, MD, PhD, national authority on prostate cancer research at the University of Chicago Medicine and one of the study authors, who presented the findings from this study at the Genitourinary Cancers Symposium sponsored by the American Society of Clinical Oncology in San Francisco in February 2020 via a press release. “Approximately 12% of advanced prostate cancer patients have tumors that harbor a BRCA1 or BRCA2 alteration. We have arrived at an exciting inflection point in the field, as we now have the first FDA approved targeted therapy that can effectively treat a genetically defined subset of mCRPC patients, with poor prognosis and worse clinical outcomes on conventional treatments.”

 

 

 

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