Clinical Trials Help Experts Understand Classification/Diagnosis of Sarcomas

Matthew Ingham, MD, an assistant professor of Medicine in the Division of Hematology and Oncology at New York Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia University Medical Center, highlights a recent clinical study in the sarcoma space and discusses what else is being evaluated for this patient population.

Uterine sarcoma is a a rare disease that has many different subtypes, but clinical trial and molecular profiling have helped researchers further understand their diagnosis and classification.

According to Ingham, there are ongoing trials evaluating new targets for uterine sarcomas related to PARP inhibitors. These studies will help further understand this type of sarcoma and develop new treatment strategies to improve patient outcomes.

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0:08 | We ran a study at Columbia that is a good example of this. The study involves a combination of a PARP inhibitor called olaparib [Lynparza] with a low dose of chemotherapy called temozolomide. In this study, which was mostly patients who had progression on chemotherapy, we found that the treatment offered some activity. The response rate was about 27%, and the median progression-free survival was about 7 months. There are limitations but it seems to compare a little bit favorably to some of the existing drugs that we have after chemotherapy, like trabectedin, or pazopanib. We hope that it is starting to establish proof of principle that these targeted approaches with PARP inhibitors and DNA-damaging agents may be a new class of drugs that could help these patients.

0:53 | There are a number of other exciting clinical trials that are following this and being developed at centers across the country. Those are looking at other targets that are related to PARP inhibitors…and a protein called PLK1, [and other inhibitors] that are related but a little different. They are all DNA-damaging checkpoints that we hope will offer a new class of targeted therapies for these patients. We just have to better understand which target is going to be the best one.