Translational Analysis In Longitudinal Series of Ovarian Cancer ORganoids

Translational Analysis In Longitudinal Series of Ovarian Cancer ORganoids

This is a longitudinal observational phase II, single center, single arm study on the reliability of high grade serous ovarian carcinoma organoids obtained from primary debulking surgery (PDS)+adjuvant chemotherapy and neoadjuvant chemotherapy + interval debulking surgery (NACT+IDS) cases as model for the patients' response to treatments. Since organoids represent a model system comparable to patient-derived xenografts, the investigators tested the null hypothesis that the possibility of correctly identifying the drug-sensitivity could improve from 80%, as assessed by xenografts to at least 95%. The first step was planned to include 7 patients; if 5 or more patients do not respond, the trial will be terminated. If the trial goes on to the second stage, a total of 43 patients will be studied. Considering a patient dropout of approximately 10%, the study was planned to enroll at least 48 patients.

In this project, the investigators propose to employ the patients-derived organoid technology to test HGSOC organoids obtained from PDS+adjuvant chemotherapy and NACT+IDS cases to predict patients' response to treatments; moreover, the investigators aim to study genomic and phenotypic evolution of HGSOC organoids from PDS+adjuvant chemotherapy and NACT+IDS patients undergoing relapse. Finally, the investigators intend to investigate splicing-targeting technologies as new potential therapeutic treatments to increase vulnerability of HGSOCs. FIGO stage IIIC or IV ovarian, fallopian tube, or primary peritoneal cancer patients will be included if disease at metastatic sites is supposed to be completely resectable and they will be triaged for staging laparoscopy to obtain histologic diagnosis and to provide the tumor load assessment through the laparoscopic score. If PDS is chosen, open cytoreduction will be performed at the same time and bioptic tissue will be collected for organoids; otherwise, women will be submitted to NACT followed by IDS and tissue for organoids will be collected from both staging LPS biopsy (pre-) and subsequent surgery (post-NACT). Part of each surgical specimen will be used to obtain organoids, whereas part will be frozen for direct comparative analysis of the original tumor. 1-6 organoids from each patient will be prepared from PDS or NACT-IDS patients (pre- and post-NACT) and blood samples will also be collected to purify extracellular circulating RNA (cRNAs).

Inclusion Criteria:

1. age between 18 and 75 years
2. estimated life expectancy of at least 4 weeks
3. performance status (PS) according to Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group (ECOG) < 2
4. adequate bone marrow, respiratory, hepatic, cardiologic medullary and renal function (creatinine clearance < 60 ml/min according to Cockroft formula)
5. histologic diagnose of epithelial ovarian cancer at frozen section and laparoscopic score ≥ 8 or ≤ 12 (considered HTL) with no evidence of mesenteric retraction

Exclusion Criteria:

1. Pregnancy or breast-feeding
2. History of concomitant or previous malignancy in the last 5 years