Mutations in genes are causes of cancer

• April 23, 2024

The study of genetic diagnosis has allowed the identification of some of the causes of breast and ovarian cancer in our country, such as deleterious mutations (pathogenic) in the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes, as a result of advances in genetic medicine, the high level of specialization and infrastructure National Institute of Cancerology (INCan).

According to the doctor Carlos Pérez-Plascencia, Head of the Genomics and Mass Sequencing Unit of INCan , the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes contain the necessary information to presume the existence of hereditary breast and ovarian cancer, so that their mutations not only talk about what causes cancer, but also determines an increased risk of suffering from another type of cancer associated to said genes.

He too Head of the Laboratory of the Biomedical Research Unit of the UNAM explains that around 10% of cases of breast and ovarian cancer have a strong inherited-family component, so it is important to have this type of molecular diagnostic studies that can prevent at least 10% of the 15 thousand cases of cancer in women under 65, projected towards 2015 in Mexico.

In this sense, according to the doctor Rosa Ma. Álvarez, geneticist of sequencing at the INCan , the odds of a woman developing breast and ovarian cancer are about 10%, while those who carry one of these mutations have an 80% chance of developing the Hereditary breast and ovarian cancer syndrome .

The knowledge of the existence of deleterious mutations, such as the six detected in the BRCA1 and BCRA2 genes that are unique in Mexican patients, allow to predict the existence of breast and ovarian cancer long before it can be diagnosed in the patient, as well as 20 years prior to the appearance of the tumor.

In this case, INCan specialists say that if you are under 40 years old and you have a history in the breast and ovarian cancer family, it is important to be channeled to specialized care (genetics) to know the possibility of being a carrier of mutations.

Video Medicine: What Causes Cancer? Cancer Mutations and Random DNA Copying Errors (April 2024).