article_snippet.sent: Men with advanced prostate cancer could benefit from a pioneering drug originally meant for women.
article_snippet.sent: ‘exciting’ new research suggests the drug, already used to treat women with breast cancer, could also help men with genetic faults within men with genetic faults prostate cancer (pictured) tumours .
article_snippet.sent: Up to 30 per cent of men with advanced prostate cancer have tumours that have DNA defects and these respond particularly well to olaparib.
article_snippet.sent: researchers at the Institute of Cancer Research and the Royal Marsden hospital found 16 out of 49 men with advanced prostate cancer responded to a pioneering drug originally meant for women, also known as Lynparza.
article_snippet.sent: a pioneering drug originally meant for women stopped prostate cancer growth, generating lower tumour cell counts in the blood and improved responses in medical scans.
article_snippet.sent: The drug - called olaparib - can extend the length of time that a prostate cancer patient lives with the disease without the disease getting worse, according to new clinical trials.
article_snippet.sent: This opens up the exciting possibility of delivering precise treatment for advanced prostate cancer, guided by genomic testing and based on the molecular characteristics of patients’ tumours. '
article_snippet.sent: Dr Emma Hall of the Institute of Cancer Research said: ‘We’ve seen a significant improvement in the length of good quality life men can hope to live even with the most advanced prostate cancers. '
article_snippet.sent: Dr Iain Frame of Prostate Cancer UK said:
article_snippet.sent: We want to get to a stage where every man gets the treatment every man needs for every man specific cancer.
article_snippet.sent: Researchers did not specify the length of time for which olaparib was able to stop advanced prostate cancer worsening.
highlights_snippet.sent: Up to 30 per cent of men with advanced prostate cancer have tumours with genetic defects  - and men with advanced prostate cancer responded well to olaparib .
  