Olaparib: A Review as First-Line Maintenance Therapy in Advanced Ovarian Cancer

Olaparib (Lynparza^®) is a poly (adenosine diphosphate-ribose) polymerase (PARP) inhibitor approved for first-line maintenance treatment in adults with advanced ovarian cancer who are in complete or partial response to first-line, platinum-based chemotherapy. Originally approved as monotherapy, olaparib is also approved to be administered in combination with bevacizumab in patients whose cancer is associated with homologous recombination deficiency (HRD), defined by either a BRCA1/2 mutation and/or genomic instability. In phase III trials, olaparib monotherapy significantly improved progression-free survival (PFS) relative to placebo (SOLO-1), as did olaparib plus bevacizumab relative to placebo plus bevacizumab (PAOLA-1), in patients with advanced ovarian cancer who had responded to platinum-based chemotherapy. In PAOLA-1, improvements in PFS with olaparib plus bevacizumab were not seen in patients with HRD-negative tumours relative to placebo plus bevacizumab. Both olaparib monotherapy and olaparib in combination with bevacizumab had generally manageable tolerability profiles. Olaparib, alone or in combination with bevacizumab, is a useful option for the first-line maintenance treatment of adults with HRD-positive, advanced epithelial ovarian, fallopian tube or primary peritoneal cancer who are in complete or partial response to first-line, platinum-based chemotherapy.