Niraparib Significantly Improves Outcome of Ovarian Cancer Patients

(October 11, 2016) According to research published this month in the New England Journal of Medicine, the PARP inhibitor niraparib improves progression free survival in recurrent, platinum-sensitive women both with and without germline BRCA mutations.

In a randomized, double-blind, phase III trial of over 550 women both with and without germline BRCA mutations, researchers found that patients receiving niraparib once daily as maintenance therapy had significantly longer progression free survival (PFS) than those who received placebo.

Among patients who were germline BRCA mutation carriers, patients treated with niraparib had a PFS of 21.0 months, compared to 5.5 months for placebo. For patients who were not germline BRCA mutation carriers but whose tumors were HRD positive, PFS for patients receiving niraparib was 12.9 months, compared to 3.8 months. Finally, niraparib also showed statistical significance in the overall non-germline BRCA mutant cohort, which included patients with both HRD-positive and HRD-negative tumors; in this group, the median PFS for patients treated with niraparib was 9.3 months, compared to 3.9 months for placebo.

These promising findings suggest that niraparib provides significant clinical benefit regardless of BRCA status.

Read more at Science Daily, and view the abstract.