For the first time, scientists have been able to take a close look at a gene that causes breast cancer and pinpoint an important role for mutations in another gene, the AP reports.
The finding could point the way to new ways to prevent and treat breast cancer, which affects 1 in 4 woman’s lives and kills 30,000 women a year in the U.S.
The findings appear Thursday in the journal Nature.
Researchers from the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Texas Children’s Hospital in Houston, and the Texas Memorial Cancer Center and Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas started with a group of more than 150,000 women with breast cancer. The women have not been diagnosed with the cancer, but were treated at a local clinic under the supervision of a doctor who could detect cancer. They were then followed for an average of four years.
