clipped from: www.msnbc.msn.com Just-released research about a new class of drugs called “PARP inhibitors” is the most exciting development in cancer research in a decade or more. In just a few years it could save thousands of lives.
All this enthusiasm is based on a small report published today in the New England Journal of Medicine. It focuses on one clinical trial in its earliest stage in 60 patients with breast, ovarian and prostate cancer. Some — but not all — of the patients whose cancers seemed hopeless saw them shrink drastically or disappear. Many avoided the typical side effects — nausea, hair loss — associated with cancer treatment.