Drug offers new hope for high-risk BRCA patients

Click for OlympiA Clinical Trial video

CANCER DIGEST – June 5, 2021 – Early results show that for the first time a new therapy approach significantly reduced the risk of cancer returning after treatment in high-risk patients with mutated BRCA1 or BRCA2 genes. 

The study was reported in the June 3, 2021 New England Journal of Medicine.

The trial called "Adjuvant Olaparib for Patients with BRCA1 or BRCA2 Mutated Breast Cancer," dubbed the OlympiA trial involved 1,836 patients from 420 cancer cancer centers across 23 countries.

Breast cancer patients with the BRCA mutations who had received prior treatment were randomly assigned to receive a new drug called a PARP inhibitor, olaparib (Lynparza®). After three years 85.9% of patients who received Olaparib survived free of recurrent breast cancers compared to 77.1% of those in the placebo group. Over the same period 87.5% of the Olaparib group remained free of distant metastatic cancer compared to 80.4% of the placebo group.

Overall there were 27 fewer deaths in Olaparib group compared to the placebo group.

The study was led by top breast cancer researchers Charles Geyer, MD at Houston Methodist Cancer Center, Judy Garber, MD, MPH at Dana Farber Cancer Institute, and Bella Kaufman, MD, of the Sheba Medical Center in Israel.

The study was funded by the US National Cancer Institute and AstraZeneca.

Read more ...

Source: Houston Methodist Cancer Center press release