Dr. George Demetri on Trabectedin for Sarcomas

George D. Demetri, MD, Director, Center for Sarcoma and Bone Oncology Senior Vice President for Experimental Therapeutics, Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School, Dana Farber Cancer Center, discusses a phase III study of trabectedin verus dacarbazine for the treatment of patients with advanced liposarcoma (LPS) or leiomyosarcoma (LMS).

Trabectedin is a multifunctional drug derived from a sea squirt, which is now manufactured synthetically. The sarcoma community is particularly interested in this drug because it has been showed to produce extremely good response and durable disease stability, sometimes lasting four to five years, said Demetri.

However, there is no predictive biomarker to determine which patients will benefit from this drug. The aim of the study was to determine which patients responded more favorably to trabectedin versus the standard of care dacarbazine.

The study is ongoing, however an interim analysis presented at ASCO 2015, showed that trabectedin had a significant benefit over dacarbazine in terms of disease control and progression-free survival.