A breast cancer ‘wonder drug’ could be turned into a universal weapon against tumours, British scientists said last night.
They have discovered a way of making a family of breast cancer pills effective against other cancers.
The finding could lead to new drugs that shrink many – or even all – types of tumour, the Newcastle University scientists said.
In addition, side-effects such as nausea and tiredness should be minimal.
The excitement centres on a family of cancer drugs known as PARP inhibitors, which affect the way tumour cells repair themselves.
These target hereditary forms of breast cancer, as well as ovarian prostate cancers and pancreatic tumours with the same rogue gene.
The drugs are of particular interest to doctors because they zero in on the tumour, and kill it without harming healthy cells.
This means patients suffer fewer side effects than they would with chemotherapy or radiotherapy, in which healthy cells are affected.
The drugs exploit the ‘Achilles’’ heel’ of hereditary forms of breast cancer. This is caused by a flaw in a gene called BRCA1, which limits the cells’ ability to repair damage to their DNA.
Healthy cells have two ways of patching up damage – which allows them to breed, grow and spread – but cells in BRCA tumours have only one.
PARP inhibitors block this remaining pathway, stopping the tumour cells from multiplying, eventually leading them to die. Some breast, ovarian and prostate tumours have flawed BRCA genes – but account for a small proportion of all cancers.
