BRCA-related breast and ovarian cancers showing early response to Investigational PARP inhibitor

ata for breast cancers).

In patients being treated at the 1 mg dose recommended for future trials, 50 percent of the breast cancer patients with BRCA mutations had an objective response and 86 percent had clinical benefit. Of the three patients with pancreatic cancer, two have had stable disease.

Fewer than 20 percent of the patients had grade 3 adverse events including fatigue, anemia, neutropenia, and thrombocytopenia, and one patient had a grade 4 toxicity.

Given the high objective and clinical benefit response rates in breast cancer patients, the investigators have recently initiated a phase 3 trial in metastatic breast cancer with BRCA mutations, according to Wainberg.

Among those with BRCA-unrelated cancers recruited to the phase 1 trial, one of the seven currently evaluable patients with small-cell lung cancer (SCLC) has responded, according to Wainberg. This patient, whose tumor metastasized extensively, has an ongoing partial response, he explained. "A solid partial response in a patient with SCLC provides some optimism about finding indications other than BRCA-related tumors that will benefit from treatment with BMN 673," he said.