Genetic risk factor

An international research team has identified a virulent, new genetic risk factor for colon cancer.

An international research team has identified a virulent, new genetic risk factor for colon cancer.

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The discovery could lead to early screening and treatment for people who have this genetic disposition to contract the disease.

The team, led by Dr. Steven Lipkin of the Chao Family Comprehensive Cancer Center at UC Irvine and Dr. Stephen B. Gruber of the University of Michigan, discovered a novel mutant gene in Israeli colon cancer patients. The researchers also discovered that the presence of the gene significantly increased the risk of colon cancer among these patients.

The researchers found that people with this genetic variant form of MLH1 D132H have a 40-percent lifetime risk of getting colon cancer compared to a 6-percent risk for the general population.

Colorectal cancer rates in Israel are among the highest in the world.

"We found the gene in a wide patient population of Sephardic and Ashkenazi Jews, Muslim and Christian Arabs, Druze Christians and Bedouins," said Lipkin, the director of the cancer genetics clinic at the Chao Center.

"This leads us to believe that the population carrying this genetically variant gene is not limited to Israel, and this variant may have arisen during early phases of human evolutionary population migration. Although their numbers may be small, the people who have this specific genetic risk factor can be living anywhere in the world, and the odds of them getting colon cancer someday are very high," added Lipkin.