New pilot study to combine drugs in bid to treat ovarian cancer tumours

Hudson Institute researcher Dr Simon Chu has been awarded a $US71,000 ($AU100,000) international grant to conduct a pilot study to explore new therapeutic stratagies to treat ovarian cancer.

The United States based Rivkin Center for Ovarian Cancer pilot study award will support Dr Chu for a year as he investigates new treatments for granulosa cell tumours, a specific subset of malignant ovarian cancers. The project was chosen out of a total of 118 applications.

Dr Chu’s pilot study will examine whether a combination therapy is more efficacious than current frontline therapy, which to date has proved ineffective.

“Granulosa cell tumours form when there is dysfunction in the granulosa cells of the ovary,” Dr Chu said.

“Our pilot study will determine if using therapeutic drugs that act on critical cell signalling pathways can render these tumours more sensitive to chemotherapy.

“By identifying and manipulating the patterns of key genes involved in cell survival, we hope to extract important prognostic information and also identify potential new ways of treating these tumours,” he said.

The new therapy will combine a drug (currently in clinical trials) that targets a key cell survival protein, with drugs that are being used for the treatment of diabetes.

The outcomes of this grant, though highly relevant for granulosa cell tumours, will also have broader implications for epithelial ovarian cancers that are also known to co-express the target proteins.

Granulosa cell tumours have an unusual propensity for late recurrence, and up to 80 per cent of patients with aggressive or recurrent tumours will die from their disease.

Dr Chu said the high recurrence rate makes it especially important to find new ways of tackling the disease.

The Rivkin Center for Ovarian Cancer pilot study program is designed to support innovative approaches to understand ovarian cancer, in order to provide vital preliminary work to form the basis for future funding through larger funding administrations.

Dr Chu will also have the opportunity to speak at the biennial Ovarian Cancer Research Symposium in Seattle (USA) in September to outline the pilot study program.