WOMEN in Scotland with relapsed ovarian cancer will be offered a life-extending pill on NHS Scotland for the first time.

Campaigners described the decision to prescribe niraparib to eligible patients as a "gamechanger" in the fight against the disease, which claims the lives of around 350 women in Scotland every year.

The drug will be made available to women with advanced ovarian cancer which has returned, and who do not have the BRCA genetic mutation.

The Scottish Medicines Consortium said there were currently fewer satisfactory alternative treatments for this group of patients.

Niraparib - also known by the brand name Zejula - works by stopping cancer cells from repairing themselves, effectively crippling them.

It is part of a new family of cancer treatments known as PARP inhibitors.

Only two have been approved for use by the SMC before, but niraparib is the first to be made available to women with recurrent ovarian cancer on a mass scale since most patients - around 85% - do not have the BRCA mutation.

Carriers of the BRCA 1 and BRCA 2 mutation are at higher risk of developing ovarian cancer, but they already have access to another PARP inhibitor - olaparib - on NHS Scotland.

In clinical trials, women without the BRCA mutation who were given niraparib averaged just over nine months without the disease progressing compared to four months for the placebo.

When the disease returned, their average progression-free survival on niraparib was 18 and a half months compared to 15 and a half months for the placebo.

It can be taken easily at home as an oral daily tablet.

In Scotland, one woman dies every day from ovarian cancer and just 39 per cent of women diagnosed with ovarian cancer will survive for five years or more.

Annwen Jones, chief executive of Target Ovarian Cancer, said: “We know that with the right investment in new treatments, more women can and will survive this disease. Today is a critical first step in making that a reality.”

Catherine Clotworthy, 63, from Kilmaurs in East Ayrshire, has been taking niraparib for 10 months via an expanded access scheme.

She said: “When I was first diagnosed with ovarian cancer in 2014, I was so shocked – I’d been having problems with digestion and with my tummy for years but I never thought it could be cancer.

"The cancer is advanced, but last October I started taking niraparib - and now I can see a future for myself.

"I had such a fear of cancer – but now I have a chance to live with it. I believe all women living with this disease should have that, too.”