Further Investigation of Veliparib Underway for Glioblastoma

Mustafa Khasraw, MD, medical oncologist, neuro-oncologist, and deputy director of the Center for Cancer Immunotherapy at the Duke Cancer Institute, discusses a follow-up trial to the VERTU study (NCT02152982) for patient with methylated or unmethylated MGMT (O6-methylguanine-DNA methyltransferase) glioblastoma who responded well to temozolomide (Temodar) chemotherapy and radiation.

For the follow-up trial, after receiving temozolomide and radiation, patients were randomized to veliparib (ABT-888), a PARP (poly (ADP-ribose) polymerase) inhibitor, with temozolomide and radiation or placebo with temozolomide and radiation. This study has a larger number of patients than the VERTU trial and has been completed, according to Khasraw. He expects the results will come out sometime over the year of 2020. The patients included in this trial were those left out the original VERTU trial.

Khasraw says that moving forward, there needs to be biomarkers and subsets of patients identified for this setting; specifically, those who will benefit from a PARP inhibitor, if there is a benefit at all. He also suggests that other treatments be explored, such as combinations of immunotherapy for patients with glioblastomas.

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