• S B Kaye, N Colombo, B J Monk, S Tjulandin, B Kong, M Roy, S Chan, E Filipczyk-Cisarz, H Hagberg, I Vergote, C Lebedinsky, T Parekh, P Santabárbara, Y C Park, A Nieto, and A Poveda.
• Section of Medicine, Institute of Cancer Research, The Royal Marsden Hospital, Sutton, Surrey, UK. Electronic address: stan.kaye@rmh.nhs.uk.
• Ann. Oncol. 2011 Jan 1; 22 (1): 49-58.

BackgroundOVA-301 is a large randomized trial that showed superiority of trabectedin plus pegylated liposomal doxorubicin (PLD; CentoCor Ortho Biotech Products L.P., Raritan, NJ, USA). over single-agent PLD in 672 patients with relapsed ovarian cancer, particularly in the partially platinum-sensitive subgroup [platinum-free interval (PFI) of 6-12 months]. This superiority has been suggested to be due to the differential impact of subsequent (platinum) therapy.Patients And Methodsa detailed analysis of subsequent therapies and survival outcomes in the overall population and in the subsets according to platinum sensitivity was therefore conducted.Resultssimilar proportions of patients received subsequent therapy in each arm (76% versus 77%), including further platinum-based regimens (49% versus 55%). Patients in the trabectedin/PLD arm received subsequent chemotherapy at a later time (median delay 2.5 months versus PLD arm). Overall survival from subsequent platinum was significantly prolonged in the partially platinum-sensitive disease subset (hazard ratio = 0.63; P = 0.0357).Conclusionthe superiority of trabectedin/PLD over single-agent PLD in OVA-301 cannot be explained by differences in the extent or nature of subsequent therapies administered to these patients. On the other hand, these exploratory analyses support the hypothesis that the enhanced survival benefits in the partially platinum-sensitive subset might be due to an extended PFI leading to longer survival with subsequent platinum.

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