Many women with a faulty breast cancer gene could be at greater risk of the disease due to extra risk-amplifying genes, according to research published this month in the American Journal of Human Genetics.
Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine join an international consortium of research groups that looked at more than 10,000 women carrying a BRCA1 or BRCA2 mutation for breast-cancer risk.
“These results suggest that knowledge of a BRCA1 or BRCA2 mutation is necessary, but not sufficient, to fully understand cancer risk in women who carry these mutations,” says co-author and head of the North American coalition Timothy R. Rebbeck, PhD, Professor of Epidemiology at Penn. “This paper demonstrated that other genes, and possibly exposures, could provide important information that may refine our ability to predict cancer in this high-risk population. Because carriers of BRCA1 or BRCA2 mutations are relatively rare in the population, the only way to undertake studies of this type is by forming large consortia.” Rebbeck is also the Associate Director for Population Science at Penn’s Abramson Cancer Center.
“This is the first time we have found evidence that common changes in other genes can amplify the risk of breast cancer in women known to have faulty BRCA genes,” says lead author Professor Doug Easton, director of Cancer Research UK’s Genetic Epidemiology Unit at the University of Cambridge. “This is the first step in finding a set of genes that modify the risk in BRCA carriers, and may influence how we monitor women with a family history of the disease.”
The international team of scientists have found that common versions of two genes – FGFR2 and TNRC9 – known to increase breast cancer risk in the general population – also increase the risk in women carrying damaged versions of the BRCA2 gene.
Around one in eighteen women will develop breast cancer by the age of 65. On average, half of women carrying a faulty BRCA2 gene will develop the disease by the age of 70.
This study found that particular combinations of the FGFR2 and TNRC9 genes modify breast cancer risk in BRCA2 mutation carriers. One percent of BRCA2 mutation carriers have the highest risk combination of FGFR2 and TNRC9 genes. Seven in every 10 women in this category are predicted to develop breast cancer.
Around twenty percent of the BRCA2 mutation carriers have the lowest risk combination of the FGFR2 and TNRC9 genes. The researchers found that their risk is lowered so four in every 10 women in this category are expected to develop the disease.
These findings are the first step in a series of studies hunting for breast cancer susceptibility genes, which aims to better monitor and treat women with a family history of the disease.
Source: University of Pennsylvania
Related stories:
Just a numbers game? Making sense of health statistics
Presidential candidates use them to persuade voters, drug companies use them to sell their products, and the media spin them in all kinds of ways, but nobody - candidates, reporters, let alone health consumers - understands them. Health statistics fill today's information environment, but even most doctors, who must make daily decisions and recommendations based on numerical data - for instance, to calculate the risks of a certain drug or surgical intervention, or to inform a patient of the possible benefits versus harms of cancer screening - lack the basic statistical literacy they require to make such decisions effectively.
Largest review of its kind associates anti-inflammatory drugs with reduced breast cancer risk
Analysis of data from 38 studies that enrolled more than 2.7 million women – the largest of its kind – by researchers at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver Coastal Health Research Institute, and the University of Santiago de Compostela reveals that regular use of Non Steroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drugs (NSAIDs) is associated with a 12 per cent relative risk reduction in breast cancer compared to non-users.
Overweight men face higher risk of dying of prostate cancer
(PhysOrg.com) -- Prostate cancer patients who are overweight and have elevated insulin levels are much more likely to die of the cancer than other patients, say researchers at Harvard University and McGill University. Their research is published in the October issue of
The Lancet Oncology.
Tamoxifen chemoprevention tied to early detection of breast cancer
The drug tamoxifen does not prevent or treat estrogen receptor (ER) negative breast cancer, but it can make the disease easier to find, researchers report in the Oct. 1
Journal of the National Cancer Institute.
Herbal menopause therapy a good fit for breast cancer patients?
When it comes to understanding the effectiveness and safety of using herbal therapies with other drugs, much is unknown. Now, a University of Missouri researcher will study how black cohosh - an herbal supplement often used to relieve hot flashes in menopausal women - interacts with tamoxifen, a common drug used to treat breast cancer.
New study examines effectiveness of colorectal cancer screening tests
New findings from a Decision Analysis for the US Preventative Services Task Force (USPSTF) suggest that routine colorectal cancer screenings can be stopped in patients over the age of 75. The results are based on patients who began screenings at age 50 and have had consistently negative screenings up to the age of 75. Lead author Ann Graham Zauber, PhD, Associate Attending Biostatistician in the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center and her colleagues' findings are published in the October 7, 2008 online edition of
Annals of Internal Medicine and will appear in a forthcoming issue.
3 share Nobel prize for work on AIDS and cancer
(AP) -- Three European scientists shared the 2008 Nobel Prize in medicine on Monday for separate discoveries of viruses that cause AIDS and cervical cancer, breakthroughs that helped doctors fight the deadly diseases.
Smoking and solid fuel use in homes in China projected to cause millions of deaths
If current levels of smoking and biomass and coal fuel use in homes continues, between 2003 and 2033 there will be an estimated 65 million deaths from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and 18 million deaths from lung cancer in China, accounting for 19% and 5% of all deaths in that country during this period.