Gene linked to increasing pancreatic cancer risk

WASHINGTON, Dec. 29 (Xinhua) -- Mutations in the ATM gene may increase the hereditary risk for pancreatic cancer, according to data published Thursday in Cancer Discovery, the latest journal of the American Association for Cancer Research.

Pancreatic cancer is one of the most morbid cancers, with less than five percent of those diagnosed with the disease surviving to five years. Approximately 10 percent of patients come from families with multiple cases of pancreatic cancer.

"There was significant reason to believe this clustering was due to genetics, but we had not, to this point, been able to find the causative genes that explained the cluster of pancreatic cancer for a majority of these families," said lead author Alison Klein, associate professor at Johns Hopkins University and director of the National Familial Pancreas Tumor Registry.

Klein and colleagues used next-generation sequencing, including whole genome and whole exome analyses, and identified ATM gene mutations in two kindreds with familial pancreatic cancer.

Klein said knowledge of the presence of the ATM gene could lead to better screening for pancreatic cancer, the fourth most common cause of cancer-related death.

Source: http://c.moreover.com/click/here.pl?r5678837595&f=378

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