Real-Time Assessment of Homologous Recombination Deficiency During Ovarian Cancer Treatment
Abstract
Ovarian cancers usually have already spread from the ovaries to other organs at the time a woman is first diagnosed, and most women with ovarian cancer undergo radical surgery and extended chemotherapy for treatment. Patients with ovarian cancer generally have a good response to this therapy, but most cancers eventually reappear and require additional rounds of chemotherapy. "Precision medicine" uses individual characteristics of a specific cancer to help choose the best therapy for that patient. Many ovarian cancers have defects in DNA repair that make them vulnerable to specific types of chemotherapy as well as a new class of drugs called PARP inhibitors. Over time, the cancer changes and develops resistance to these therapies. Choosing the best treatment could require repeated painful and expensive biopsies in order to identify changes in the cancer that impact response to therapy. We propose to develop a blood test to monitor tumor characteristics in real time by evaluating free-floating tumor DNA (called cell-free DNA) in the bloodstream. This novel assay will use cell-free DNA to evaluate DNA repair alterations in ovarian cancers and how those change during the course of treatment. We hope these studies will lead to new, less invasive ways of providing ongoing tumor information that will facilitate monitoring women with ovarian cancer and choosing the therapies most likely to be effective.
Document Details
- Document Type
- DoD Grant Award
- Publication Date
- Aug 07, 2017
- Source ID
- W81XWH1710075
Entities
People
- Elizabeth M Swisher
Organizations
- United States Army
- University of Washington