We’re on the verge of being able to use our knowledge of these genetic variations to develop tests that could complement breast cancer screening and take us a step closer to having an effective prostate cancer screening programme.
- Doug Easton
The research, led by scientists at the University of Cambridge and The Institute of Cancer Research, London, funded by Cancer Research UK and the Wellcome Trust, could lead to new treatments, targeted screening and a greater understanding of how these diseases develop.
The scientists were looking for genetic variations – called single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) – linked to an increased risk of developing cancer.
By studying the DNA make-up of over 100,000 people with cancer and 100,000 people from the general population, they found alterations that were more common in people with prostate, breast or ovarian cancers.
Each alteration raises the risk of cancer by a small amount, but the one per cent of people who have lots of these alterations could see their risk of developing prostate cancer increase to nearly 50 per cent and breast cancer to around 30 per cent.
Study author Professor Doug Easton, from the Centre for Cancer Genetic Epidemiology at the Department of Public Health and Primary Care and the Department of Oncology at the University of Cambridge, said: “We’re on the verge of being able to use our knowledge of these genetic variations to develop tests that could complement breast cancer screening and take us a step closer to having an effective prostate cancer screening programme."
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Image:iCOGS is a custom Illumina iSelect® genotyping array developed for the study.
Credit: Illumina
Reproduced courtesy of the University of Cambridge
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