BRCA-deficient cancers respond to combination of two experimental drugs

WASHINGTON DC—Doctors taking the unusual step of combining two experimental drugs to treat cancers in patients who have mutated BRCA — the gene conferring susceptibility to breast, ovarian and some other solid tumours — found that patients responded through what appears to be a synergistic action. Dr Geoffrey Shapiro, Director of the Early Drug Development Center at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston presented findings at the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting on the combination of sapacitabine (a nucleoside analogue) and seleciclib (a cyclin-dependent kinase inhibitor). He discussed the clinical potential of this technique with Peter Goodwin.