A trial looking at adding new chemotherapy drugs to the standard treatment for ovarian cancer (GO-First)

The researchers found that ovarian cancer responded to gemcitabine and oxaliplatin in more than three quarters of the women in this trial. But having all 4 drugs caused too many side effects.

The trial recruited 20 women who had stage 3 or 4 ovarian cancer. They all had 4 cycles of treatment with gemcitabine and oxaliplatin (GO), followed by 4 cycles of treatment with paclitaxel and carboplatin (PC).

After 4 cycles of GO, the researchers found

• The cancer had disappeared in 4 women – researchers call this a complete response
• The cancer had got smaller in 12 women – researchers call this a partial response

After 4 cycles of PC, there were

• 13 complete responses
• 4 partial responses

They also looked at how long it was before the cancer started growing again. On average, this was just over 1 year and 2 months.

Generally, the side effects of GO were not serious, but a small number of women had bad sickness, and a drop in white blood cells, causing an increased risk of infection. A quarter of the women had some nerve damage (peripheral neuropathy).

After having the PC chemotherapy, nearly three quarters of the women had peripheral neuropathy. So, the researchers say that having all 4 drugs causes too much nerve damage, and that this combination should not be used in future clinical trials.

We have based this summary on information from the team who ran the trial. 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. We have not analysed the data ourselves.