A pill that holds back ovarian cancer and has the potential to prolong life has been licensed for use in the UK.
Niraparib is a PARP inhibitor belonging to a class of drugs that target cancers with defective DNA repair systems.
Research has shown that pill can buy valuable months of time before the disease returns after chemotherapy.
In some women, with an inherited BRCA gene mutation, the time to relapse was increased from 5.5 months to 21 months compared with chemotherapy alone.
Niraparib was also shown to help women without a BRCA mutation to a lesser degree, doubling the length of time before recurrence.
The drug is now licensed for use in the UK but is yet to be assessed for free availability on the NHS.