Breast Cancer Pill can be Converted into Wonder Drug to Fight Multiple Cancers

A group of scientists at the Newcastle University has said that a breast cancer pill can be turned into a single drug that can help in fighting a number of other cancers. The researchers said that the drug can be used to reduce size of a number of different types of tumors while side effects such as nausea and tiredness will be minimal.

These drugs in focus belong to a class of drugs called PARP inhibitors, which alter the way tumor cells can repair themselves. The drugs block the pathway through which cells that have the BRCA 1 gene repair themselves.

Researcher Professor Nicola Curtin told the Daily Mail that blocking Cdk1 compromises DNA repair in cancer cells, making them sensitive to PARP inhibitors, "The very fact that the defect that makes cells vulnerable to PARP inhibitors can be recreated in lung cancer is pretty hopeful," she added.

A study published in Nature Medicine also showed that in mice with lung tumours, blocking Cdk1 halted the DNA repair in cancer cells. The tumors in the mice shrank when they were given PARP inhibitors subsequently.

Source-Medindia