The Telegraph on a new treatment for women with an aggressive form of breast cancer known as HER2-positive breast cancer. The drug has been shown to slow the progression of tumours by 40 per cent compared with current treatments.

Tests on 137 women showed that the new therapy, an injection combining the common treatment Herceptin with an antibody drug, appeared to temporarily halt the disease in its tracks.

Patients who were given the new treatment lived for 14 months without their cancer getting worse, compared with nine months for those on normal chemotherapy.

It also resulted in fewer patients suffering dangerous side-effects compared with standard treatments, doctors said.