(Ivanhoe Newswire) -- Women with hard-to-treat ovarian cancer may soon have a new option.

A new study out of the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., shows good results for a treatment combining the anti-cancer drugs flavopiridol and cisplatin. The combination therapy was provided to 18 women with platinum-resistant ovarian cancer. Women with platinum-resistant cancers often fail to respond to treatment with platinum-based therapies typically used to treat the disease.

In this study, the addition of the investigational drug flavopiridol to the standard platinum-based drug cisplatin boosted effectiveness. One of the women in the study saw a complete response to the treatment and five others had a partial response. These results are about twice as good as those seen with standard treatments, according to study authors.
 

“We are encouraged by the interim results of this trial,” study author Keith Bible, M.D., Ph.D, was quoted as saying. “Platinum-resistant ovarian cancer responds poorly to traditional therapies, and we’ve been working toward developing more effective treatments for this disease. This combination looks very promising.”

Ovarian cancer strikes about 22,400 women in the United States every year, and almost 15,300 will die of the disease. The cancer is often diagnosed in its later, and more difficult-to-treat stages, so finding new treatments is paramount to saving lives. Dr. Bible and his colleagues report the flavopiridol/cisplatin therapy may provide new hope to patients, if the drug combo can be validated in additional patients.

SOURCE: Presented at the Molecular Targets and Cancer Therapeutics International Conference in San Francisco, Oct. 23, 2007