Scientists have discovered another breast cancer gene, which may be involved with breast cancer development. Mutation in this gene greatly increases the risk of breast cancer in women of European heritage. These genes may work in combination with the well-known BRCA genes and may increase the risk of breast cancer development as much as 80 percent.

These new research findings come from Iceland's Decode Genetics, and scientists say that the study suggests that women with certain mutations in two of the genes have an almost certain risk of developing breast cancer.

The newly discovered gene is called BARD1. "The BARD1 variant works together with the BRCA2 mutation in Iceland and increases the likelihood of breast cancer from 45% in those who have only the BRCA2 mutation up towards 100% in those who also have the BARD1 variant," Decode chief executive Kari Stefansson said in a statement.

The research team has found that women who harbor BARD1 mutation tend to develop breast cancer on both breasts. The Decode team identified 1,090 women in Iceland who had breast cancer, and compared them to 703 Icelandic women who did not have breast cancer. A mutant variant of BARD1 gene was found in 5.4% of breast cancer patients and 3.1% of women who did not have breast cancer. This represents an 80% increase in risk of developing breast cancer.

Harboring BARD1 mutation alone was not associated with very significant risk of developing breast cancer, but a combination of BARD1 mutation and BRCA2 mutation resulted in significant risk of developing breast cancer.

Italian and Finnish families with a history of breast and ovary cancer had high probability of having BARD1 mutation. Other BARD1 variants have been discovered in African-American and Japanese women, but the contribution of these variants to the risk of breast cancer are not clearly known.



Posted by: Betsy    Source

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