The research team found buparlisib and radiotherapy didn’t cause too many side effects, and did increase oxygen levels in lung cancer cells.
This study was open for people take part between 2013 and 2017. The research team published the results in 2019.
Results
- buparlisib tablets once a day for two weeks
- radiotherapy once a day for 5 days during the second week of buparlisib
- a PET-CT scan before treatment and a week after finishing treatment
The first few people had the lowest dose of buparlisib. They didn’t have any serious side effects, so the next few people had a higher dose. This is called dose escalation. Once the research team had found the best dose to give, 10 more people had that dose of buparlisib. This is called dose expansion.
The research team looked at whether buparlisib increased oxygen levels in the cancer cells of 15 of the people who took part. They found that the oxygen levels increased in 10 of these 15 people (67%).
This study wasn’t designed to find out whether this helped radiotherapy work better or not. Researchers would need to do a larger trial to look at this.
Side effects
Most people taking part had at least 1 side effect of buparlisib, but many were mild or short lived. The most common side effects were:
- tiredness (fatigue)
- feeling sick
- a drop in appetite
Some people taking part had some of the common
side effects of radiotherapy. These included pain on swallowing or inflammation of the lung. No one taking part had any extra radiotherapy side effects.
Conclusion
The research team concluded that buparlisib and radiotherapy didn’t cause too many side effects for people with lung cancer. And that it did help increase oxygen levels in the cancer cells. They suggest more work is done to find out if this helps radiotherapy work better.
Where this information comes from
We have based this summary on information from the research team. The information they sent us has been reviewed by independent specialists (
peer reviewed 
) and published in a medical journal. The figures we quote above were provided by the trial team who did the research. We have not analysed the data ourselves.