Newswise — BOSTON — Cancers driven by the RAS oncogene are aggressive and difficult to treat, and thus far precision drugs haven’t been able to target the mutant RAS gene successfully.
But in a presentation at the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting on Monday, April 3, 2017 at 10:30 a.m., in Washington DC, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute scientists said a number of patients in a small study with RAS-driven lung, ovarian, and thyroid cancers got long-term clinical benefit from a combination of two drugs that targeted molecular pathways controlled by the RAS gene. “Between one-quarter and one-third of patients got long-term clinical benefit,” said Geoffrey Shapiro, MD, PhD, director of Dana-Farber’s Early Drug Development Center. “Several patients were on the drugs for more than a year, and one patient has been on treatment for two and a half years. And these were heavily-treated patients without many options.”
One component of the oral combination was palbociclib, which inhibits cyclin-dependent kinase CDK4. The other drug was PD-0325901, an experimental inhibitor of MEK, a protein kinase that is overactivated in some cancers. Both MEK and CDK4/6 are “downstream” of the RAS oncogene and are more easily targeted than RAS itself.
The phase I study included 25 patients, of whom 17 had KRAS-driven lung cancer. The patients received the two drugs once or twice daily at five different dose levels for three of every four weeks. One patient had partial shrinkage of the tumor and 18 had stable disease as the best response. Seven patients had stable disease – the cancer did not grow – for more than six months, including five with non-small cell lung cancer, one with thyroid cancer, and one with ovarian cancer.
Shapiro said the combination was safe and tolerable, and “we definitely have subsets of patients with long-term clinical benefit, suggesting that continued evaluation of drugs targeting CDK4 and MEK should be pursued.”
About Dana-Farber Cancer InstituteFrom achieving the first remissions in childhood cancer with chemotherapy in 1948, to developing the very latest new therapies, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute is one of the world’s leading centers of cancer research and treatment. It is the only center ranked in the top 4 of U.S. News and World Report’s Best Hospitals for both adult and pediatric cancer care.
Dana-Farber sits at the center of a wide range of collaborative efforts to reduce the burden of cancer through scientific inquiry, clinical care, education, community engagement, and advocacy. Dana-Farber/Brigham and Women’s Cancer Center provides the latest in cancer care for adults; Dana-Farber/Boston Children's Cancer and Blood Disorders Center for children. The Dana-Farber/Harvard Cancer Center unites the cancer research efforts of five Harvard academic medical centers and two graduate schools, while Dana-Farber Community Cancer Care provides high quality cancer treatment in communities outside Boston’s Longwood Medical Area.
Dana-Farber is dedicated to a unique, 50/50 balance between cancer research and care, and much of the Institute’s work is dedicated to translating the results of its discovery into new treatments for patients locally and around the world. # # #
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