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Men with advanced prostate cancer could benefit from a pioneering drug originally meant for women.

Clinical trials show that olaparib can delay the moment when the disease gets dangerously out of control.

The drug already works for women with cancer fuelled by BRCA gene mutations, the defect that led to actress Angelina Jolie having her ovaries removed.

New 'exciting' new research suggests the drug, already used to treat women with breast cancer, could also help men with genetic faults within their prostate cancer (pictured) tumours

Up to 30 per cent of men with advanced prostate cancer have tumours that have DNA defects and these respond particularly well to olaparib.

The London trial of olaparib, which is owned by AstraZeneca, was led by researchers at the Institute of Cancer Research and the Royal Marsden hospital. They found 16 out of 49 men with advanced prostate cancer responded to the drug, also known as Lynparza.

It stopped prostate cancer growth, generating lower tumour cell counts in the blood and improved responses in medical scans.

Most of the men who had detectable DNA repair mutations had disease control lasting much longer than expected. 

This suggests the men most likely to benefit from the drug could be identified by testing to look for mutations.

Olaparib became the first of a new class of drugs called PARP inhibitors to be granted approval last month for use in ovarian cancer by the European Commission and the US Food and Drug Administration.

The inhibitors work by blocking the cancer cell's ability to repair damage. 

Cancer cells that have a mutation in a BRCA gene rely completely on the PARP protein to fix the damage. 

The inhibitor drugs suppress this protein and can stop mutated cells from growing. 

Side effects from traditional anti-cancer treatments are reduced because only tumour cells with genetic defects are targeted.

Professor Johann de Bono, who was the trial chief investigator, said: 'This opens up the exciting possibility of delivering precise treatment for advanced prostate cancer, guided by genomic testing and based on the molecular characteristics of patients' tumours. 

'It shows that PARP inhibitors can be effective in a wider group of patients than had been thought – in men as well as women, patients with mutations in their tumours as well as those with inherited mutations, and in those with a wider range of gene defects.'

The drug, olaparib, is the first cancer drug to target inherited genetic mutations. It works by blocking the cancer cell's ability to repair damage

Dr Emma Hall of the Institute of Cancer Research said: 'We've seen a significant improvement in the length of good quality life men can hope to live even with the most advanced prostate cancers. 

'These encouraging results show that olaparib could be the next drug to add to those already available.'

The results of the trial were presented at the American Association of Cancer Research conference in Philadelphia.

The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence will now decide whether olaparib should become widely available on the NHS. A decision is expected in September.

Dr Iain Frame of Prostate Cancer UK said: 'We want to get to a stage where every man gets the treatment he needs for his specific cancer.'

Researchers did not specify the length of time for which olaparib was able to stop advanced prostate cancer worsening.