Drug slashes chance of ovarian cancer relapse

A BREAKTHROUGH treatment for ovarian cancer slashes the chance of it returning, a study has found.

Two thirds of patients given the drug during a trial led by Edinburgh University had not relapsed within three years, compared to a third among those who were given a placebo, which doctors described as ‘exciting’.

Ovarian cancer is the sixth most common cancer in females in the UK, with around 7,300 new cases each year. It is notoriously difficult to treat, as the majority of cases are not diagnosed until it has spread.

Just over a third of women are still alive a decade after diagnosis. Olaparib, the first in a revolutionary class of treatments developed in British universities, has already been found to extend the lives of severely ill women with the disease.

In the latest study, 260 women with the BRCA gene mutation were given the pill while 130 others were given a placebo. All also underwent surgery and chemotherapy, as is standard.

Half of those given the treatment are still showing no signs of the disease returning since the trial began in 2013, according to the findings published in the New England Journal of Medicine.

Professor Charlie Gourley, from the University of Edinburgh team said: ‘The most exciting finding is that more than half the patients on the olaparib arm have not relapsed. This is unprecedented and raises the possibility a number of patients may be cured.’

Olaparib, sold under the brand name Lynparza, is the first of a group of drugs called PARP inhibitors that exploit a weakness in cancer cells’ defences.

Because it is already used to treat women whose ovarian cancer has returned, it could quickly be approved for use.