PARP inhibitors have previously shown exciting clinical efficacy in the treatment of BRCA mutant-associated breast, ovarian and prostate cancers.16,17,28 Golan et al., recently reported the POLO trial, which evaluated olaparib therapy as maintenance treatment for patients with a germline BRCA1 or BRCA2 mutation and metastatic pancreatic cancer without progressive disease after at least 16 weeks of platinum-based chemotherapy.29 Of 3315 patients screened 247 (7.5%) were found to have a germline mutation in BRCA1 or BRCA2 and 154 patients were ultimately randomised. Here, BRCA2 is linked to prostate carcinoma.