This image provided by AstraZeneca shows a bottle of the medication Lynparza. In a study released Thursday, June 3, 2021, by the American Society of Clinical Oncology, Lynparza was found to help breast cancer patients with harmful mutations live longer without disease after their cancers had been treated with standard surgery and chemotherapy.

A pill has been shown to help keep certain early-stage, hard-to-treat breast cancers at bay after initial treatment in findings being reported early because they are so promising.

Study results were released Thursday by the American Society of Clinical Oncology and published in the New England Journal of Medicine.

The pill, called Lynparza, was found to help breast cancer patients with harmful mutations live longer without disease after their cancers had been treated with standard surgery and chemotherapy.

It was studied in patients with mutations in genes known as BRCA1 and BRCA2 that can predispose people to breast cancer if they don’t work properly, but who did not have a gene flaw that can be targeted by the drug Herceptin.

Most patients in the study also had tumors that were not fueled by the hormones estrogen or progesterone. Cancers not fueled by these two hormones or by the gene Herceptin targets are called “triple negative.” They are especially hard to treat.

The new study tested Lynparza in 1,836 women and men with early-stage disease who were given the drug or placebo pills for one year after surgery and chemotherapy. About 82% of patients in the study had triple-negative breast cancer.

After three years, 86% of patients on it were alive without their cancer recurring compared to 77% in the placebo group.