Word: colon
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This fundamental instability may help explain why patients suffering from hereditary colon cancer seem to respond better to treatment than those whose disease arises in other ways. Apparently their tumor cells are already so heavily damaged that the malignant tissue is actually more susceptible to chemotherapy and radiation than other types of cancer cells...
Just as important, the marker may lead to better screening tests. Early detection makes all the difference to colon-cancer patients. About 90% of people whose tumors are found early are still alive five years after their diagnosis. That figure plummets to less than 10% once the cancer has spread beyond the intestines. However, according to a recent study, the most widely used screening test, which detects blood in stool samples, misses more than 70% of all tumors...
Vogelstein expects that within three years there will be a better diagnostic test based on the newly discovered genetic defect. The first to benefit from such a blood test will be the 5 million to 10 million Americans who are now considered to be at an increased risk of colon cancer because of a strong family history (usually defined as having three or more relatives with the disease, one of them stricken before age 50). The test could cost $300 a family, according to Vogelstein. About three-fourths of family members will learn that they do not carry the gene...
Eventually, even people who have no family history of colon cancer could benefit from the current findings. Once all the genes whose damage can lead to intestinal tumors have been discovered, researchers may be able to detect such dangerous changes whenever they occur. "DNA testing as we know it now is not cost efficient," says Dr. Funmi Olopade, professor of oncology at the University of Chicago. "But the way technology is moving, 10 years from now this will no longer be such an exorbitant test to perform...
...inherited defect triggers colon tumors and other cancers...