A NEW drug has been approved in Scotland to treat a cancer that lags behind others in survival rates.

Rucaparib (Rubraca) was accepted for use on the NHS as a maintenance treatment in patients whose recurring ovarian cancer has responded partially or completely to treatment with chemotherapy.

Patients currently receive gruelling rounds of chemo with increasingly shorter time between relapses.

The new drug can be taken at home.

Two other treatments were approved by the Scottish Medicines Consortium (SMC) for non-small cell lung cancer and a rare form of acute lymphoblastic leukaemia.