Genome link found between breast and ovarian cancer

26 September, 2012

A study has found some molecular similarities between breast and ovarian cancer, which may lead researchers to some new treatments for the deadly diseases.

THE STUDY that was published in the British journal, Nature has uncovered the similarities in the frequency and the type of genetic mutations in breast and ovarian cancer. There are also some genomic similarities between the basal-like subtype breast cancer and the serous ovarian cancer. As the two disorders share a common genomic feature, this can help in finding some new ways in future to treat these diseases.

The breast cancer and the ovarian cancer are the leading causes of death in women and this genetic information is like a boom. Now it depends totally on the researchers as to how they would use it clinically.

The research analyzed the tumors of both the cancers, by using two basic approaches. The first one was the unbiased and genome-wide approach and the second was within the context of the previously known molecular sub-types.

The four previously known molecular sub-types were Luminal A, Luminal B, HER2-enriched and Basal-like. Finally, both the approaches came to a similar conclusion, which says that even at a high genetic diversity of breast cancers, the four main sub-types can be observed.

"The molecular similarity of one of the principal sub types of breast cancer found in ovarian cancer gives us additional leverage to compare treatments and outcomes across these two cancers," says Harold Varmus, director of the National Cancer Institute (NCI), as reported in AFP.

This study gives the most complete picture of breast cancer. This research is an important milestone for all the breast cancer studies; this gives a clear picture and will also help to confirm the previous findings on breast cancer.

Cancer is a complex disease with many variations and till now there is no technology available to find out the alterations. But this study helps to identify the vast majority of these alterations.