Dr. Oh on the Importance of Identifying DNA Damage Repair Mutations in Prostate Cancer

William K. Oh, MD, chief of the Division of Hematology and Medical Oncology and professor of medicine and urology at Mount Sinai Hospital, as well as the deputy director of the Tisch Cancer Institute, discusses the importance of identifying DNA damage repair mutations in prostate cancer.

With the advent of precision medicine and targeting BRCA mutations and other DNA damage repair mutations the role for PARP inhibitors in prostate cancer becomes more pronounced, says Oh. Although patients with those mutations only represent about 20% of all patients with advanced metastatic prostate cancer, the identification of those patients via germline and somatic testing is necessary. Subsequently, it’s important to ensure that patients are directed to the right treatment based on those test results. That being said, there is still an opportunity to take the treatments available, whether they are androgen receptor—targeted therapies, chemotherapy, bone targeted therapies, or even immunotherapy, and try to determine how to best optimize sequencing, concludes Oh.