BALTIMORE, Dec. 30 (UPI) -- Using next-generation sequencing, as well as whole genome and whole exome analyses, U.S. researchers identified gene mutations linked to pancreatic cancer.
Lead author Alison Klein -- associate professor of oncology at the Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins, and director of the National Familial Pancreas Tumor Registry -- said mutations in the ATM gene may increase the hereditary risk for 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," Klein said in a statement.
When these initial findings were examined in a large series for patients, ATM mutations were present in four of 166 subjects with pancreatic cancer, but were absent in 190 spousal control subsets, the study said.
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.
The findings were published in the journal of the American Association for Cancer Research.
