A new targeted treatment for patients with a germline mutation: olaparib in pancreatic cancer.

Pancreatic cancer has a poor prognosis. Focused efforts in the development of novel treatments of this disease have led to the approval of new combinations. Improvements in knowledge of the biology of these tumors have been made, and it is now widely accepted that a proportion of patients have potentially targetable altered genes. One such gene is , which confers sensibility to PARP inhibitors. Olaparib, an oral PARP inhibitor, initially demonstrated activity in Phase II clinical trials including germline -mutated patients. This was confirmed in a Phase III clinical trial in pancreatic cancer patients with a germline mutation. After the results of this study, new scenarios have been evoked. We review the development of olaparib in pancreatic cancer.