PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:

30-Sep-2014

Contact: Chris Jones jonesc83@cardiff.ac.uk Cardiff University @cardiffuni

Screening families of patients with bowel cancer for a genetic condition would cut their risk of developing bowel, womb, and ovarian cancers, new research has found.

In a major study, Dr Ian Frayling from Cardiff University's School of Medicine and researchers from the University of Exeter's Medical School assessed the effectiveness of introducing a UK-wide screening programme for a genetic condition known as Lynch Syndrome.

Lynch syndrome is a caused by changes in genes which check the spelling in DNA. The condition increases the risk of people developing cancer, particularly bowel cancer and cancers of the womb and ovaries later in life. Without testing cancers, it is not obvious that they are caused by Lynch syndrome, and so it is often not diagnosed.

It is responsible for around one in 12 cases of people aged under 50 and around a third of people with the disease develop bowel cancer by the time they are 70, if no action is taken.

"If Lynch Syndrome is identified as the cause of bowel cancer, patients can be offered risk-reducing measures such as more intensive post-operative colonoscopy surveillance to spot recurrences and new cancers early," according to Cardiff University's Dr Ian Frayling, the clinical adviser to the study.

"As close relatives have a 50 per cent chance of sharing the gene, screening would provide a valuable opportunity to detect the condition in children, siblings, parents and more distant relatives.

"It would mean measures could be taken to reduce the risk of cancers developing," he added.

See original here:

Genetic test would help 'cut bowel cancer spread'