What types of drugs or therapies are being used?
One drug is the experimental anticancer drug AZD2281, and the other is the approved anticancer drug carboplatin. AZD2281 is in a class of agents called PARP inhibitors. PARP is a protein that is involved in repairing DNA damage and PARP inhibitors are drugs that interfere with the PARP protein function. Though carboplatin has been approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for many cancers, its use with AZD2281 in any cancer is experimental. There has been no prior human testing of AZD2281 in combination with carboplatin. AZD2281 has been tested alone in patients with recurrent cancers of many types, and at least one ovarian cancer patient had tumor shrinkage with AZD2281 treatment alone. Carboplatin has known activity as a single agent in some patients with recurrent ovarian and breast cancer.
