Researchers have found that the gene that causes breast cancer can also lead to lung cancer.
BRCA2, the gene that causes an increased risk of developing breast cancer, is also responsible for increasing the risk of developing lung cancer. According to a report in the journal Nature Genetics, one in four smokers with a certain mutation in BRCA2 will develop lung cancer.
BRCA mutations can already increase the risk of developing a number of different cancers. Mutations can greatly increase the risk for breast cancer, ovarian cancer, prostate cancer, and now lung cancer. While it is well know that smoking can cause cancer, the researchers involved in the report wanted to know if there were any genetic factors involved.
The researchers did a genome-wide association study, which is a study that looks at known genes at this time. They used data from over 11,000 lung cancer patients and over 15,000 people who did not have lung cancer. Eventually, they narrowed their search down to mutations in the BRCA2 gene. They found that one of the mutations can be found in about 2 percent of the European population and can greatly increase the risk of lung cancer.
“For a smoker carrying this variant (2 percent of the population), the risk of developing lung cancer is approximately doubled, which may have implications for identifying high-risk ever-smoking subjects for lung cancer screening,” the researchers wrote in their report.
They added that they thought this was “the strongest genetic association in lung cancer reported so far.”
The study also suggests that cancer drugs called PARP inhibitors will hopefully be able to help people with the lung cancer gene mutation. It will be interesting to see what kind of help this study will bring about for patients with the BRCA2 mutation, and if it will make lung cancer more preventable.