New Blood Test Improves Ovarian Cancer Treatment Targeting

More than 300,000 women are diagnosed with ovarian cancer globally each year.

The four-year clinical trial across 15 Australian hospitals – known as SOLACE2 – was co-led by the University of Sydney NHMRC Clinical Trials Center, RMIT University and WEHI, and coordinated by the Australia New Zealand Gynaecological Oncology Group (ANZGOG).

The Phase II trial tested strategies for priming the immune system to enhance the effectiveness of PARP inhibitor therapy,which stops cancer cells from repairing their own damaged DNA by blocking the PARP enzyme.

During this trial,a new companion blood test for women with ovarian cancer was also evaluated – with promising results.

Precision Targeting Cancer Treatment for Better Outcomes

PARP inhibitor therapy is currently offered to women whose cancer has a defect in DNA repair, known as homologous recombination deficiency. These cancers are called ‘HRD positive’.

Though, clinicians have long recognized that some women with an ‘HRD negative’ cancer can still benefit from PARP inhibitors, while others with an ‘HRD positive’ ovarian cancer may not respond, suggesting other factors influence treatment response.

RMIT lead researcher and co-senior author, Distinguished Professor Magdalena Plebanski, said there hadn’t been an easy way to more effectively target PARP inhibitor therapy, beyond the currently approved HRD test, until now.

“In SOLACE2, we demonstrated that a new immune test could better indicate which women will respond to PARP inhibitors,” said Plebanski, who heads RMIT’s Accelerator for Translational Research and Clinical Trials (ATRACT) Centre.

“We expect this promising new test will enable more effective screening and identification of eligible patients for PARP inhibitors,allowing us to provide