A trial looking at olaparib and capivasertib for people with cancer that has come back or spread to another part of the body (ComPAKT)

Cancer type:

All cancer types

Secondary cancers

Status:

Results

Phase:

Phase 1

This trial looked at a combination of olaparib and capivasertib for people who had a solid tumour Open a glossary item and there were no standard treatments available. It was for people who had already had treatment.

A solid tumour is any type of cancer other than leukaemia Open a glossary item or lymphoma .

The trial was supported by Cancer Research UK. It was open for people to join between 2014 and 2016. The team published the results in 2020.

More about this trial

Olaparib and capivasertib (AZD5363) are both types of targeted cancer treatments. Olaparib is a PARP inhibitor. It stops a protein called PARP working. PARP helps damaged cells to repair themselves.

Capivasertib is a cancer growth blocker. It stops the signals that cancer cells use to divide and grow.

There were 2 parts to this trial.

The first part was for people with any type of solid tumour Open a glossary item . People in this part had different doses of treatment. This is called dose escalation.

The second part was for people with a solid tumour and certain gene changes. This included people with changes (mutations) to the BRCA1 or BRCA2 genes. People in this part all had the same dose. The doctors chose the best dose from the results of part 1. This is called dose expansion.

People in both parts of the trial had either:

a lower dose of treatment for 3 days out of every 7, or
a higher dose of treatment for 2 days out of every 7

The main aims of the trial were to find out:

the best doses of olaparib and capivasertib to give
more about the side effects

Summary of results

This trial showed that olaparib and capivasertib may be a useful treatment for some people and didn’t cause too many side effects.

Results
A total of 64 people took part in this trial:

20 in part 1 (dose escalation)
44 in part 2 (dose expansion)

The people taking part had a number of different cancers including ovarian, breast, pancreatic and prostate cancer.

How well treatment worked
The team looked at how well treatment worked. They looked at how many people’s cancer either got a bit better or stayed the same.

First they looked at the number overall. They had results for 56 of the people who took part. Then they looked at the results for 25 people who had a change (mutation) in their BRCA1 or BRCA2 gene.

The cancer got better or stayed the same in:

25 out of 56 people (45%) in total
16 out of 25 people (64%) with a BRCA1 or BRCA2 gene change

Side effects
Most people taking part had at least 1 side effect. Many of these were mild or didn’t last long. But some were more serious.

The most common side effects included:

rash
a drop in red blood cells causing tiredness and shortness of breath
feeling or being sick
diarrhoea

Conclusion
The trial team concluded that the combination of olaparib and capivasertib didn’t cause too many side effects. And that it may be useful as a cancer treatment for some people. In particular it may be useful for those with a BRCA1 or BRCA2 gene mutation.

They suggest other trials are done to find out more.

More detailed information
There is more information about this research in the reference below.

Please note, the information we link to here is not in plain English. It has been written for healthcare professionals and researchers.

Phase I Trial of the PARP Inhibitor Olaparib and AKT Inhibitor Capivasertib in patients with BRCA1/2 - and Non– BRCA1/2 -Mutant Cancers
T Yap and others
Cancer Discovery, 2020. Volume 10, issue 10, pages 1528 – 43.

Where this information comes from
We have based this summary on the information in the article above. This has been reviewed by independent specialists (peer reviewed Open a glossary item ) and published in a medical journal. We have not analysed the data ourselves. As far as we are aware, the link we list above is active and the article is free and available to view.