Ovarian cancer breakthrough

A group of international scientists has identified a handful of important new genetic variants indicating increased risk of ovarian cancer, which also reveal important genetic similarities between it and breast cancer.

Researchers from the Queensland Institute of Medical Research (QIMR), the US, Europe and Canada, compared the genes of 10,238 women with ovarian cancer to 13,185 healthy women and found five different stretches of DNA containing single-code variations, known as single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs), linked to increased risk of the disease.

Professor Georgia Chenevix-Trench, Head of QIMR’s Cancer Genetics Laboratory described the discovery as the research equivalent of finding five individual spelling mistakes in 200,000 pages of text.

The identification of these mutations is likely to greatly assist in the early detection of ovarian cancer, while paving the way for new preventative treatments.

“These latest findings raise the possibility that, in the future, women who are at the greatest risk of developing ovarian cancer because they carry these newly discovered DNA variants, can be identified and given closer surveillance to look for early signs of ovarian cancer when it is most treatable,” Professor Georgia Chenevix-Trench said.

“Alternatively, preventive approaches could be targeted towards these women.”

The study also showed that four of the five new DNA variations were most common in women who had developed the most common and agressive form of the disease known as serious ovarian cancer.

The research follows another recent study by the same team which showed that one of these five DNA regions increased the risk of breast cancer in women carrying the faulty copy of the BRCA1 gene.

“These results strengthen the evidence that breast and ovarian cancer share a similar genetic basis,” said Professor Chenevix-Trench.

The study, described in two separate papers published in the journal Nature Genetics, was conducted in collaboration with Dr Simon Gayther, University College London, Dr Paul Pharoah from Cambridge University and a number of other researchers from various institutions around the world.