Panitumumab and Gemcitabine in Relapsed Ovarian Cancer

This is a study to find out if the study drug, panitumumab, when given with gemcitabine works in treating ovarian cancer and to find out what side effects occur when they are given together.

Epithelial ovarian cancer (EOC) remains a leading cause of gynecologic cancer mortality in women, with more than 22,000 deaths per year in the United States alone. Due to the lack of effective screening strategies and subtle early symptoms, eighty percent of newly diagnosed patients have disease that is advanced. Despite cytoreductive surgery and adjuvant paclitaxel-based and platinum-based chemotherapy, 5-year survival rates continue to be less than 40%. For patients who become resistant to the platinum compounds (defined as progressive disease while on a platinum-based chemotherapy regimen (refractory) or within 6 months of completing a platinum-based chemotherapy regimen (resistant)),the outlook is particularly poor, and often heralds multi-drug resistant disease. At the present time, the management of ovarian cancer in the platinum refractory disease state is limited to palliative intent. Patients with advanced, bulky tumors, poor performance status and nutritional compromise are unlikely to respond to therapy and may be best served by supportive care. The clinical management of refractory disease requires both patience and persistence. A patient with platinum refractory disease is begun on one of the agents with activity and an evaluation of response is made every 6-8 weeks of therapy. As long as the patient shows no signs of disease progression, the therapy can be continued unless there is unacceptable toxicity. When progressive disease is observed, another of the list of available agents can be used. It is likely that patients will receive multiple single agents during the chronic phase of their illness. Every effort should be made to balance disease response with toxicity and quality of life. Based on this rational, this trial will be conducted to evaluate the safety and efficacy of panitumumab, a human antibody targeted to the EGF-R, and Gemcitabine, in treating women with recurrent platinum-refractory/resistant EOC. Our aim is to determine the safety and feasibility of gemcitabine and panitumumab therapy in this population and once completed, to proceed with an efficacy study using an expanded cohort.