Two New Gene Mutations Linked to Thyroid Cancer
Thyroid cancer occurs in 14 out of every 100,000 women per year in the U.S. compared to only five men per 100,000. And in 2008, there were 37,340 new cases of thyroid cancer and 1,590 deaths, according to the U.S. National Cancer Institute.
Scientists don’t know what causes the disease, but a new study out of Iceland suggests that two small mutations within the billions of total molecular units in our DNA may play some role. This is the first report of a genetic link specific to thyroid cancer.
The study led by Dr. Julius Gudmundsson and published in the journal Nature Genetics examined the DNA from more than 960 volunteers of northern European descent from Iceland, Spain and the US. The researchers found that having one of either two mutations slightly increased the risk of developing thyroid cancer by about 30%.
Having both mutations dramatically increased the risk. "When you take the risk of both of them, they have almost six times the risk of thyroid cancer that the average person has," said lead researcher Dr. Kari Stefansson, CEO of deCODE Genetics, the company that sponsored the research in Reykjavik, Iceland.
