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Anne Li                                                                                                April 2nd, 2017

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved the targeted therapy drug Zejula (niraparib) for women with some types of ovarian, fallopian tube, or peritoneal cancers. This is the third of this type of drug, called a PARP inhibitor, approved to treat women with ovarian cancer. But unlike with the other two drugs, the use of Zejula is not limited to women with a BRCA mutation. It’s approved for women whose cancer has come back after they received chemotherapy. PARP inhibitors work by blocking an enzyme that helps repair damaged DNA. Blocking the enzyme helps keep cancer cells from repairing themselves, so that they are less likely to grow and more likely to die. The FDA based its approval on a trial of 553 women with ovarian, fallopian tube, or peritoneal cancer that came back after at least 2 chemotherapy treatments, and that improved after the most recent treatment. The women were all tested to find out if they had a BRCA gene mutation. Women who have this inherited gene mutation have a higher risk for some cancers, including ovarian and breast cancers.

See original article at: https://www.cancer.org/latest-news/fda-approves-zejula-niraparib-for-ovarian-cancer.html