Gene mutation boosts cancer risk in men
9/1/2005 Linda Geddes NewScientist.com Men carrying a genetic mutation that significantly increases the risk of breast cancer in women are at a greater risk of prostate and pancreatic cancers than men without the mutation. Dutch researchers have confirmed that men carrying a mutated BRCA2 gene are twice as likely to develop prostate cancer and six times more likely to develop pancreatic cancer than those free of the mutation. The altered gene may also put them at increased risk of developing bone and throat cancer. A previous study suggested that carriers of mutant BRCA2 genes are at increased risk of cancer of the prostate, pancreas, gallbladder, bile duct and stomach, as well as malignant melanoma, breast cancer and ovarian cancers (Journal of the National Cancer Institute, vol 91 p 1310). But this study only looked at known mutated-BRCA2 carriers with a strong family history of breast or ovarian cancer. Christi van Asperen and her colleagues at the Centre for Human and Clinical Genetics at Leiden University in The Netherlands speculated that estimates of cancer risk at other sites in the body may differ in mutated-BRCA2 carriers with less striking , though still present, family histories of cancer. Retrospective incidence They investigated 139 families with 66 different mutations of the BRCA2 mutation between them. Using information from known mutated-BRCA2 carriers in these families, the researchers studied the retrospective incidence of cancers among both male and female family members with a 50% chance of being a carrier – amounting to 1811 people. Among [...]