A study led by researchers at the Keck School of Medicine of the University of Southern California (USC) has found that one of seven genetic risk factors previously identified as increasing the probability of developing prostate cancer also increases the probability of developing colorectal cancer.
As in the previous prostate cancer study, which was also conducted by USC researchers and published in the April 2007 edition of Nature Genetics, the colorectal cancer risk factor is located in a region of the human genome devoid of known genes on chromosome 8. The study's complete findings will be published in the July 8 online edition of Nature Genetics.
"This is an important finding because, for the first time, a common genetic risk factor for multiple cancers has been identified," says lead author Christopher Haiman, assistant professor of preventive medicine at the Keck School of Medicine of USC. Adding,"There appears to be something fundamental occurring in this region that influences not only colorectal and prostate cancer, but perhaps cancers in general." (Another recently published study, in which USC researchers also were involved, identified variants in this same chromosomal region as playing a predictive role relative to the risk of developing breast cancer.)