High response rates to neoadjuvant platinum-based therapy in ovarian cancer patients carrying germ-line BRCA mutation

Abstract

Preoperative therapy provides an advantage for clinical drug assessment, as it involves yet untreated patients and facilitates access to the post-treatment biological material. Testing for Slavic founder BRCA mutations was performed for 225 ovarian cancer (OC) patients, who were treated by platinum-based neoadjuvant therapy. 34 BRCA1 and 1 BRCA2 mutation carriers were identified. Complete clinical response was documented in 12/35 (34%) mutation carriers and 8/190 (4%) non-carriers (P = 0.000002). Histopathologic response was observed in 16/35 (46%) women with the germ-line mutation versus 42/169 (25%) patients with the wild-type genotype (P = 0.02). Somatic loss of heterozygosity (LOH) for the remaining wild-type BRCA1 allele was detected only in 7/24 (29%) post-neoadjuvant therapy residual tumor tissues as compared to 9/11 (82%) BRCA1-associated OC, which were not exposed to systemic treatment before the surgery (P = 0.009). Furthermore, comparison of pre- and post-treatment tumor material obtained from the same patients revealed restoration of BRCA1 heterozygosity in 2 out of 3 sample pairs presenting with LOH at diagnosis. The obtained data confirm high sensitivity of BRCA-driven OC to platinating agents and provide evidence for a rapid selection of tumor cell clones without LOH during the course of therapy.

Keywords: BRCA1; Loss of heterozygosity (LOH); Neoadjuvant therapy; Ovarian cancer.