16 Apr 1996: Younger Women's Ovarian Cancers More Likely to Be Inherited
Inherited mutations of the breast cancer gene BRCA1 may cause10-20 percent of ovarian cancers in women under 50, researchersat the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences reportedtoday.
The percentage is two to four times that found in women with ovariancancer at all ages, according to the researchers at NIEHS, a partof the National Institutes of Health. The study is in the April17 Journal of the National Cancer Institute.
Lead author of the report Johnathan Lancaster, a British physician,arrived at NIEHS as a visiting researcher in 1994 at about thetime it was announcing the identification of BRCA1 (along withthe University of Utah). Working at the Institute, Dr. Lancasterwas a member of the international team that identified the secondbreast cancer gene, BRCA2. He has studied the role of both BRCA1and BRCA2 in sporadic, or non-familial, breast and ovarian cancers,which account for 90-95 percent of cases of the diseases.
His new study used a novel technique, which Dr. Lancaster developedto apply to BRCA1, called the protein truncation test (PTT), tosearch for mutations-a search that until now has been a difficultand time-consuming process. (This may be part of the reason why,despite extensive screening, only 16 BRCA1 mutations have beenfound in 267 sporadic ovarian cancers studied to date.)
In this pilot study with the new method, three of 16 patientsdiagnosed at a mean average age of 48 were found to have the alteredgene. The women were being treated by the division of gynecologyoncology at the Duke University Medical Center, which collaboratedin the study. Most ovarian cancer is diagnosed in women over 50.
Although Dr. Lancaster says the finding needs confirmation ina larger study, he notes, "it does confirm the view of manyphysicians that early-onset cancers are more likely to be inherited.Thus, if a healthy woman tells her doctor her mother or sisterdied of breast cancer or ovarian cancer at a young age, he mightsee that as a clue that mutations in a gene such as BRCA1 maybe involved."
The researchers reporting in the journal include Charles Cochran,Heather A. Brownlee, and Roger W. Wiseman, head of the NIEHS ComparativeCarcinogenesis Group which made the 1994 identification of BRCA1.Collaborators from Duke University Medical Center were Craig Evansand Andrew Berchuck and P. Andrew Futreal, who participated inthe 1994 isolation of BRCA1 while at NIEHS and in the 1995 isolationof BRCA2 while at Duke.
Although it is one of the National Institutes of Health and theNIH campus is in Bethesda, Md., NIEHS is located on its own 509-acrecampus in Research Triangle Park, N.C. Duke is nearby in Durham,N.C.
|