Purpose: Despite promising preclinical studies, toxicities have precluded combinations of chemotherapy and DNA damage response (DDR) inhibitors. We hypothesized that tumor-targeted chemotherapy delivery might enable clinical translation of such combinations.
Patients and methods: In a phase I trial, we combined sacituzumab govitecan, antibody-drug conjugate (ADC) that delivers topoisomerase-1 inhibitor SN-38 to tumors expressing Trop-2, with ataxia telangiectasia and Rad3-related (ATR) inhibitor berzosertib. Twelve patients were enrolled across three dose levels.
Results: Treatment was well tolerated, with improved safety over conventional chemotherapy-based combinations, allowing escalation to the highest dose. No dose-limiting toxicities or clinically relevant ≥grade 4 adverse events occurred. Tumor regressions were observed in 2 patients with neuroendocrine prostate cancer, and a patient with small cell lung cancer transformed from EGFR-mutant non-small cell lung cancer.
Conclusions: ADC-based delivery of cytotoxic payloads represents a new paradigm to increase efficacy of DDR inhibitors. See related commentary by Berg and Choudhury, p. 3557.
©2023 American Association for Cancer Research.