Drug that’s better than chemo for women with faulty gene

A DRUG could halt the progression of breast cancer among thousands of women with the BRCA gene mutation, a study has concluded.

Olaparib tablets taken twice a day were significantly more effective than chemotherapy, experts found.

Just over a year ago it was made available on the NHS for ovarian cancer patients with BRCA1 and BRCA2 gene mutations. But initial results from a major trial, released by British drugs firm AstraZeneca, suggest it is also an effective treatment for breast cancer. Scientists found that patients who took the pills showed a ‘clinically meaningful’ slow-down of the progression of the cancer compared with patients who took common forms of chemotherapy.

The drug, sold under the brand name Lynparza, also had few side-effects.

Olaparib is the first in a series of cancer drugs called PARP inhibitors, developed by university researchers in Sheffield, Cambridge and London. These exploit a weakness in cancer cells’ defence in order to kill a tumour without harming healthy tissue.

The drug was the first approved medicine to target an inherited genetic mutation, heralding a revolution in ‘precision’ — gene-targeted — cancer care.

Professor Andrew Tutt, of the Institute of Cancer Research in London which helped invent the drug, said: ‘It is exciting news that olaparib appears to delay progression of metastatic breast cancer in women who have inherited BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutations. I look forward to the publication of the full trial results with great interest.’

Some 65 per cent of women who inherit a BRCA1 mutation and 45 per cent of women with BRCA2 mutation will develop breast cancer by the age of 70 — compared with 12 per cent of other women. More than 55,000 British women are diagnosed with the disease every year.

Scientists are also carrying out trials on plaparib for cancers of the prostate, pancreas and stomach.