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By more understanding of cancer biology, we are entering to a modern era of anticancer drug development where agents specifically targeting cancer cells with few adverse effects on normal cells.PARP-1 inhibitors are good examples of such a development.Poly (adenosine-disposphate-ribose) polymerase (PARP-1) is an enzyme involved in DNA repair, especially in the repair of tumor cells, and inhibitors of PARP-1 effectively disarm the ability of cancer cells to repair themselves and cause the death of those cells.Importantly, PARP inhibition, which kills cancer cells, spares identical normal cells that lack cancer-related alteration, such as those of mutated BRCA1 and BRCA2.Early results in breast cancer with these drugs, which inhibits PARP, have created an astonishing amount of excitement, considering that these drugs are in early stages of their development.The new studies indicate that the agent has antitumor activity in breast, ovarian, and prostate cancers associated with BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutations.Cancer patients with BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutations are not the only candidates for PARP-1 inhibition.Tumors with defects in homologous recombination could be other potential targets for PARP inhibition therapy.For instance, BSI-201 (one of PARP-1 inhibitors), which has shown efficacy in triple-negative breast cancer, is also being studied in uterine and brain tumors.These new drugs have been also tried in combination with conventional chemotherapy.PARP-1 inhibitors significantly improved overall and progression-free survival in women with metastatic triple-negative breast cancer when combined with chemotherapy compared with chemotherapy alone with no significant added toxicity.