VERTU – VEliparib, Radiotherapy and Temozolomide trial in Unmethylated MGMT Glioblastoma
1st April 2016Glioblastoma (GBM) is a brain cancer that is almost always fatal. Standard treatment is surgical removal then 6 weeks of chemoradiotherapy followed by an additional 6 months of chemotherapy (temozolomide). GBM cells contain the enzyme MGMT, this influences effectiveness of treatment and survival. MGMT may be switched “on” or “off’. In the “on” position (unmethylated), MGMT protects GBM cells from chemoradiotherapy. Veliparib is a new drug that can make chemoradiotherapy more effective. In VERTU we assess if adding veliparib to chemoradiotherapy improves outcome of GBM pts.
VERTU is led by the COGNO (Cooperative Trials Group for Neuro-Oncology) from the NHMRC Clinical Trials Centre at the University of Sydney and it will randomise 120 patients to the experimental (80 patients) and standard treatment arms (40 patients), respectively at 20 hospitals in Australia and New Zealand.