Efficacy and safety of veliparib plus chemotherapy for the treatment of lung cancer: A systematic review of clinical trials

Background As a poly-ADP ribose polymerase (PARP) inhibitor, veliparib has been identified as a potential therapeutic agent for lung cancer. The present study aimed to conduct a systematic review of clinical trials investigating the efficacy and safety of veliparib for treating lung cancer. Methods PubMed, Scopus, the Web of Science, and Google Scholar were systematically searched up to October 30, 2022. Only randomized controlled trials (RCTs) evaluating the efficacy or safety of veliparib in the treatment of lung cancer patients were included. Studies were excluded if they were not RCTs, enrolled healthy participants or patients with conditions other than lung cancer, or investigated therapeutic approaches other than veliparib. The Cochrane risk-of-bias tool was used for quality assessment. Results The seven RCTs (n = 2188) showed that patients treated with a combination of veliparib and chemotherapy had a significantly higher risk of adverse events, when compared to the control arm. There was no statistically significant difference in overall survival (OS) between those treated with veliparib plus chemotherapy and those receiving the standard therapies. Only two trials demonstrated an improvement in progression-free survival (PFS), and only one study found an increase in objective response rate (ORR). Furthermore, adding veliparib to standard chemotherapy showed no benefit in extending the duration of response (DoR) in any of the studies. Conclusions Only a small number of studies have found veliparib to be effective, in terms of improved OS, PFS, and ORR, while the majority of studies found no benefit for veliparib over standard treatment.