A drug typically used for a rare disorder could extend the lives of patients battling a form of ovarian cancer, a study has found.
Women diagnosed with platinum-resistant ovarian cancer, a type where the disease progresses within six months of platinum-based chemotherapy, often only live for about a year post-diagnosis.
However, a new study revealed that patients receiving relacorilant, a pill already prescribed for Cushing’s syndrome and other cancers, alongside standard treatment, lived an average of four months longer than those on usual care alone.
This promising research, involving data from 381 platinum-resistant ovarian cancer patients, has been published in The Lancet and presented at the SGO 2026 annual meeting on women’s cancer.
Researchers found that those taking relacorilant were 35 per cent less likely to die compared to those receiving usual care.
Women given relacorilant lived for an average of 16 months, compared to 11.9 months for those who had usual care.
“These outcomes — a 35 per cent reduction of the risk of death from any cause and a median overall survival improvement of 4.1 months—position relacorilant plus nab-paclitaxel as a new standard treatment option for patients with platinum-resistant ovarian cancer,” the authors wrote.
Meanwhile, a separate study published in the same journal and also presented to the SGO 2026 annual meeting on women’s cancer suggests an immunotherapy cancer drug can improve survival odds among women with platinum-resistant ovarian cancer.
Immunotherapy works by stimulating the body’s immune system to fight cancer cells.
Researchers wanted to assess whether taking pembrolizumab along with usual care would benefit platinum-resistant ovarian cancer patients.
They examined data on 643 women and found that on average patients who took pembrolizumab, as well as usual care, lived for 17.7 months while those who had usual care alone survived for an average of 14 months.
The research team said the findings “support this regimen as a new standard of care”.
