Dr Oliver Dorigo on Identified Biomarkers in Gynecologic Malignancies

We have a number of biomarkers that we have shown are associated with a better response to certain new therapies, said Oliver Dorigo, MD, PhD, associate professor, obstetrics and gynecology, Stanford University Medical Center.

Transcript

What biomarkers have you identified to determine prognosis and treatment outcomes in gynecologic malignancies?

We have a number of biomarkers that we have shown are associated with a better response to certain new therapies. PARP inhibitors, for example, work the best in those patients that have either germline mutations of BRCA1 and BRCA2 or those mutations only in the tumor tissue. It’s particularly true in ovarian cancer, where we have the most experience.

We also know that certain ovarian cancers have a certain degree of defects and repair mechanisms that the cell uses to repair DNA damage. If these mechanisms are dysfunctional, then patients, again, are more likely to respond to PARP inhibitors. We call this a so-called homologous recombination deficiency score, which is a measure or a biomarker that predicts the response to PARP inhibitors, at least to some extent.

In immunotherapy, biomarkers relate mostly to what we call microsatellite instability, which does increase the probability of a patient responding to immune-checkpoint inhibition.