Dr Des Powe, Cancer Research UK-funded scientist from Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust, said: "Cancer can be thought of as having two distinct phases - before and after the disease has spread. Many women will be successfully treated for their initial breast tumour but in some, the original tumour leaves a legacy - a daughter of the primary cancer. This means cells leave the original tumour and move around the body in a process called metastasis.

"It is absolutely crucial to conquer cancer spread if we are to really improve breast cancer survival as this problem causes nearly all deaths from the disease. So it's very exciting that we have been funded by Cancer Research UK to take this work further and see whether beta blockers really do improve survival in a large population of breast cancer patients. This study will be sufficiently large to determine whether we should progress to clinical trials and identify which type of beta-blockers have the strongest effect.

Dr Julie Sharp, senior science information manager at Cancer Research UK, said: "As beta-blockers are already a known drug this could be a very interesting development, which has the potential to save a large number of lives and we hope to have to see study results within the next year."

Source: Cancer Research UK