Background: Up to 70% of patients with advanced ovarian cancer have a relapse after primary therapy. New agents and approaches are urgently needed to avoid or slow down this recurrence.
Objectives: To investigate the efficacy of PARP inhibitors (PARPis) as maintenance treatment in patients with newly diagnosed advanced ovarian cancer.
Search strategy: PubMed, MEDLINE, EMBASE, Cochrane Library and Web of Science databases.
Selection criteria: All randomised clinical trials (RCTs) that compared PARPis with placebo as first-line maintenance therapy in ovarian cancer.
Data collection and analysis: Two reviewers extracted data. Pooled hazard ratio (HR) and risk ratio (RR) with 95% confidence interval (CI) were calculated.
Main results: PARPis were associated with significant improvement of progression-free survival (PFS) in advanced epithelial ovarian cancer (AeOC) (HR = 0.53, 95% CI 0.40-0.71; P < 0.0001). The benefit was not only in women with BRCA mutations (HR = 0.35, 95% CI 0.29-0.42; P < 0.00001) and homologous recombination deficiency (HRD) (HR = 0.43, 95% CI 0.32-0.60; P < 0.00001), but also in those with nonmutated BRCA (HR = 0.72, 95% CI 0.63-0.82; P < 0.00001) and even non-HRD (HR = 0.83, 95% CI 0.70-0.99; P = 0.04).
Conclusions: PARP inhibitors are effective as maintenance therapy among patients with newly diagnosed advanced ovarian cancer after platinum-based chemotherapy, regardless of BRCA mutation or HRD status.
Tweetable abstract: PARPis provide a significant PFS benefit as first-line maintenance therapy in patients with newly diagnosed advanced ovarian cancer.
Keywords: Maintenance therapy; PARP inhibitors; ovarian cancer.
© 2020 Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists.