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Trends in Phase II trials for cancer therapies

Azam, F. and Vazquez, A. (2021) Trends in Phase II trials for cancer therapies. Cancers, 13(2), 178. (doi: 10.3390/cancers13020178) (PMID:33430223) (PMCID:PMC7825663)

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Abstract

Background: Drug combinations are the standard of care in cancer treatment. Identifying effective cancer drug combinations has become more challenging because of the increasing number of drugs. However, a substantial number of cancer drugs stumble at Phase III clinical trials despite exhibiting favourable efficacy in the earlier Phase. Methods: We analysed recent Phase II cancer trials comprising 2165 response rates to uncover trends in cancer therapies and used a null model of non-interacting agents to infer synergistic and antagonistic drug combinations. We compared our latest efficacy dataset with a previous dataset to assess the progress of cancer therapy. Results: Targeted therapies reach higher response rates when used in combination with cytotoxic drugs. We identify four synergistic and 10 antagonistic combinations based on the observed and expected response rates. We demonstrate that recent targeted agents have not significantly increased the response rates. Conclusions: We conclude that either we are not making progress or response rate measured by tumour shrinkage is not a reliable surrogate endpoint for the targeted agents.

Item Type:Articles
Additional Information:This work was supported by Cancer Research UK C596/A21140 awarded to A.V. and A17196 (core funding to the CRUK Beatson Institute).
Status:Published
Refereed:Yes
Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID:Vazquez, Alexei
Authors: Azam, F., and Vazquez, A.
College/School:College of Medical Veterinary and Life Sciences > School of Cancer Sciences
Journal Name:Cancers
Publisher:MDPI
ISSN:2072-6694
ISSN (Online):2072-6694
Published Online:07 January 2021
Copyright Holders:Copyright © 2021 The Authors
First Published:First published in Cancers 13(2): 178
Publisher Policy:Reproduced under a Creative Commons License

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