OCRFA Research Shows Novel Combination Therapy Effective in Ovarian Cancer

(December 20, 2017) Cell Reports published new research from the Wistar Institute, which looked at the potential benefits of a therapy that combines PARP inhibitors and BET inhibitors for ovarian cancer patients without BRCA mutations. The research was funded in part by an OCRFA grant to Rugang, Zhang, PhD. PARP inhibitors have already been approved to treat BRCA-mutant ovarian cancers, but researchers found that, when combining them with a BET inhibitor, they worked together to reduce tumor burden in those without the BRCA mutations.

“We identified an effective strategy to sensitize BRCA-proficient ovarian cancers to PARP inhibitors and extend their clinical efficacy to a larger group of patients,” stated Dr. Zhang, PhD, one of the authors of the paper, and deputy director of The Wistar Institute Cancer Center.

A press release from The Wistar Institute is available at Eureka Alerts.