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Poly(adenosine diphosphate-ribose) polymerase (PARP) inhibitors became part of the vocabulary of medical oncologists a few years ago, as early data from clinical trials suggested that they may have an impact in breast cancer with germline BRCA mutations and possibly triple-negative (ER-, PR- and HER2-negative) disease. PARPs are a family of enzymes critical for the repair of DNA single-strand breaks. BRCA1 and BRCA2 are tumor-suppressor genes that are involved in the repair of double-strand breaks using the homologous recombination repair pathway. Tumor cells with BRCA mutations are particularly sensitive to PARPs. Early enthusiasm for PARPs stalled when a follow-up clinical trial failed to confirm an earlier report. But subsequent data gen…