VIDEO: OlympiA findings highlight need to know breast cancer patients' mutation status
In this video, Erica L. Mayer, MD, MPH, an assistant professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and a director of clinical research at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, spoke with Healio about results from the OlympiA trial presented at ASCO 2021.
In the phase 3 study, researchers evaluated the efficacy of olaparib — a PARP inhibitor — among patients with BRCA1/2 germline mutations who had HER2-negative high-risk early breast cancer and had previously received adjuvant chemotherapy or neoadjuvant chemotherapy.
Mayer noted that, based on the findings, “we are all now figuring out how to intercalate the PARP inhibitors into our treatment paradigms for our high-risk, triple negative or hormone receptor-positive patients with known [BRCA 1 or BRCA 2] gene mutations.”
She added that “one of the really big messages from the study, and something that has been echoed by many of my colleagues, is that we need to know the mutation status of these patients, and ... we need to rapidly move toward a point where we can offer germline genetic testing for all patients who are diagnosed with breast cancer so we can identify the patients who may benefit from the use of adjuvant olaparib.”
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