Two genes linked to greater risk of bowel cancer

Published on Sunday 16 December 2007 21:07

SCIENTISTS have found two genes that might triple a person's risk of getting bowel cancer, according to a study.

The researchers estimated that up to a third of all bowel cancers might be associated with the newly-identified genes.

Their findings, published in Nature Genetics, say the increased risk of bowel cancer when these two genes are present is small. But if both these and two other high-risk genetic variants identified earlier this year were present, a person might have a two to three-fold increased risk of the cancer.

The discovery is the latest to emerge from new techniques that involve scouring the human genetic code for mutations linked to cancer.

In a previous investigation, researchers located genes responsible for Hereditary Mixed Polyposis Syndrome (HMPS), a condition that increases bowel cancer risk in Ashkenazi Jews.

The scientists did not find any genes directly responsible for HMPS, but did find other genes that increase bowel cancer risk in the general UK population.

Professor Ian Tomlinson, joint lead researcher at Cancer Research UK's London Research Institute, said: "We're delighted to have taken our research forward to pin down genes that influence a person's risk of developing bowel cancer.

"Increasing our understanding of genes like this may make it possible for scientists to eventually develop ways of stopping many people at increased risk of bowel cancer from developing the disease altogether.

"Finding out that a region we thought was only relevant to bowel cancer risk in Ashkenazi Jews was also related to risk in the wider UK population is very important."