One in five women with breast cancer could be treated effectively with PARP inhibitors, according to a new study published Monday in Nature Medicine.
The previous school of thought was that PARP inhibitors, a class of drugs that interfere with DNA repair, only work in patients with certain mutations in the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes. It’s estimated that between only 1 and 5 percent of women with breast cancer have these specific mutations.
These results suggest that PARP inhibitors, which are being studied and used in breast, ovarian, and prostate cancers, could have a much broader market than anticipated.
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