A "miracle" breast cancer drug prevents the spread of tumors by more than 40 percent, new research has found.
The drug Olaparib offers hope to women living with an incurable form of cancer, extending their lives by about three months on average.
The twice-daily pill is being compared with standard chemotherapy for patients with advanced breast cancer with BRCA gene mutations.
In 60 percent of patients who took the mentioned drug, a tumor reduction was observed, compared to 29 percent of those who received chemotherapy, according to the Daily Mail.
Professor Andrew Tat, director of the Breast Cancer Now Research Center at the Institute for Cancer Research in London, said it was "fantastic news".
"Olaparib is already available for women with a BRCA mutation in advanced stages of ovarian cancer. It is the first drug believed to target inherited genetic mutations. We are getting better at treating breast cancer patients who are diagnosed early, but in advanced stages, treatment is much more difficult," says Tat.
Olaparib belongs to a new class of drugs known as PARP inhibitors. The capsules were originally made by researchers at the Institute where Tat works.
They work by blocking a DNA "repair" protein known as PARP, which causes breast cancer cells to die.
The new findings were presented at a meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology in Chicago.
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