CRI听力: Oliparib Proved Effective in Curing Breast Cancer and Ovarian Cancer

UK scientists say they have proof that a new treatment can shrink cancer tumors and help prolong the lives of women with the most aggressive type of hereditary cancers, even after chemotherapy has failed. It follows a second trial of a new class of drug which targets the disease in women who have a family history of breast and ovarian cancers.

Our reporter Li Dong has the details.



For women who carry the gene which causes breast cancer, it's like living with a potential death sentence. And for some women it means not only that they are at risk, but their own daughters may also have inherited it.

Oliparib, the drug in development at this and other laboratories at London's Kings College, is specifically for these women.

It targets a weakness which stops the repair of our genetic code in cancer cells specifically in women who develop breast and ovarian cancer because of the defect in their genes.

Consultant oncologist Dr Andrew Tutt is leading the trials of the drug in the UK. According to Tutt these women face very difficult dilemmas.

"Those who have not yet developed cancer face very difficult decisions in order to reduce their risk with surgery which can change their body image significantly, such as mastectomies, or having their ovaries removed relatively early in life. These surgeries have a huge impact. And for women with the more advanced stages of a disease they know that they may not survive, they have concerns about their own children and whether they will share their own struggles. This is a very emotionally difficult area."

These hereditary genes are called BRCA1 and BRCA2. They account for about a fifth of all breast and ovarian cancers.

Over a hundred women took part in the trial. Around half had ovarian cancer, the rest had breast cancer, all had inherited the cancer-carrying genes.

The women were given drugs known generically as PARP inhibitors. They prevent the cancer-carrying genes from being reproduced.

Doctors here say Olaparib causes cancer cells with a BRCA fault to lose control of their DNA stability. This kills the cancer cell, meaning that the tumor should either stop growing or get smaller.

Because it is a targeted treatment, it has fewer side effects than most other drugs and kills cancer cells while leaving healthy one relatively unaffected.

"These women sadly have an incurable disease that progressed despite previous aggressive treatments. These women had many kinds of chemotherapy but their tumors were still active. We treated those women with Olaparib, knowing they that they had inherited the genes that caused their disease. We were able to show that even though they weren't responding to chemotherapy, a significant proportion of these women did have their tumors reduced in size and delayed in progression."

But he's also keen that everyone realizes although the trial is a major step forward, the drug is still at an early stage of development and it will be several years before it could even be considered as a licensed treatment.

Tutt also wants to manage patient's expectations.

"With advanced ovarian cancer, or advanced breast cancer, sadly we usually cannot cure those diseases. We are aiming to improve quality of life and life expectancy while shrinking the tumors to reduce some of the symptoms of cancer."

For CRI, I am Li Dong.