Experimental drugs previously developed to treat breast and ovarian cancers may also be effective at treating some lung cancers, Medical News Today reported.
In a study published in the journal Oncogene, researchers discovered that drugs called poly ADP ribose polymerase (PARP) inhibitors could help treat approximately 50 percent of non-small cell lung cancer tumors.
Currently, PARP inhibitors are used to treat women who have been diagnosed with breast or ovarian cancers caused by mutations in the BRCA1 OR BRCA2 genes. The drugs target two DNA repair systems simultaneously, which enables them to kill cancer cells while leaving healthy cells intact.
It is believed that the drugs would act similarly against some non-small cell lung cancer tumors.
“Lung cancer is hard to treat and unfortunately has very poor survival, so there is an urgent need to find new treatments,” said Dr. Chris Lord, a scientist at the the Institute of Cancer Research (ICR) in London where the study was conducted. “Our research opens up an exciting new route, by showing how we could repurpose drugs originally designed for use against other forms of cancer.”
Source: Fox News
