Taking a pill is probably the easiest method to getting well, and recent innovations have pushed the potential of the pill to control pancreatic cancer.

Coming of the growth of PARP inhibitors, used in clinical practice on ovarian cancer, the Rubraca medication was developed and found to be the most effective in a clinical trial in delaying recurrence in patients with BRCA mutations. Researchers have now begun to further test Rubraca in pancreatic cancer, hoping to offer patients a medication capable of controlling their disease.

“Most of the clinical work on PARP inhibitors has been in ovarian, in triple-negative breast cancer and prostate cancer,” said Kim Reiss Binder, MD, an oncologist and assistant professor at the University of Pennsylvania’s School of Medicine. “If you look at pancreatic cancer patients with strong family histories, people of Ashkenazi Jewish ancestry, and some others, the proportion with BRCA and other mutations that might respond to PARP inhibitors goes up.”