Scientists from Poland and Canada recently announced the discovery of a new gene whose mutations are linked to an increased risk of breast cancer. The ATRIP gene was announced by Cezary Cybulski, a geneticist from the Pomeranian Medical University in Szczecin and leader of an international research team along with Dr. Mohammad Akbari of Toronto University.
The research results of Polish and Canadian scientists have been published in the prestigious magazine American Journal of Human Genetics. According to the authors of the study, they may translate into better diagnosis and treatment of women with breast cancer.
Dr. Cezary Cybulski from the Department of Genetics and Pathomorphology of the Pomeranian Medical University explained that the association between the ATRIP mutation and the occurrence of breast cancer was detected in a study of 16,000 women with breast cancer and 9 thousand healthy women from Poland.
According to Dr. Cybulski, the latest discovery will enable the use of a simple and cheap test to detect mutations in the ATRIP gene. This test can be added to the test that detects about 10% cases of breast cancer in Polish women, by examining a panel of several repetitive mutations of BRCA1, BRCA2, CHEK2, PALB2, NBN, and RECQL genes in Poland. The sensitivity of such a test in detecting mutations of the above genes from Poland is over 80%.