A review on potential of PARP inhibitors in the treatment of prostate cancer

Abstract

Prostate cancer is still a fatal disease at metastatic castration resistance stage (mCRPC) in spite of pursuing advancements in patient survival, indicating the necessity of therapeutic approaches. A significant number of individuals having advanced prostate cancer, most of whom have a poor prognosis, have germinal and/or somatic mutations in their DNA damage response genes. These kinds of mutations lead to a reliance on the Poly (adenosine diphosphate ribose) polymerase for repairing single-strand breaks, indicating the necessity of Poly ADP Ribose Polymerase (PARP) inhibitors. Olaparib was the first FDA approved PARP inhibitor to demonstrate the improved overall survival in mCRPC patients having homologous recombination repair defects. Despite the fact that this is a significant step forward, there are still a number of questions regarding PARP inhibitors. This paper aims to discuss the significance and efficacy of PARP inhibitors mentioning the associated challenges and their future in the treatment of prostate cancer.