A new study on childhood cancer points that the dreaded diagnosis may not be random all the time. It can be genetic and that it can occur even if the child doesn't have a cancer-centric lineage.
A group of researchers and doctors from St. Jude Children's Research Hospital and Washington University of St. Louis, MN, discovered that around 1 in every 10 children diagnosed with cancer has an increased risk based on the mutated gene they carry.
The study led by the CEO and president of the hospital Dr. James Downing is part of the Pediatric Genome Project, which both teams have been working on. Considered as the "most ambitious effort," it seeks to determine the beginnings of childhood cancers to be able to find the precise medicine. It looks into multiple genes that are associated with the disease. So far, they have been dealing with more than 500 genes that are closely linked with a variety of cancers, particularly those that occur in children.
Out of these hundreds of genes, they zeroed in on 60 genes, which they call the germline mutations as they have the tendency to increase the risk of cancer if the child inherits a mutated copy from any of the parent. They then compared them to the genes found in more than 1,100 children with cancer. For control, they considered two groups, namely, children with autism but with no cancer as well as healthy adults.
Based on the results, 8.5% of the children with cancer carry the germline gene mutations, which is significant compared to less than 1.5% of children with the said genes but didn't have any cancer. The mutated genes, further, can contribute to the increased risk of common child cancers affecting the brain and the nervous system, as well as leukemia.
The data also showed that more than 55% of the cases with the germline mutation cannot be attributed to a family history of cancer, which means getting the family's medical profile to assess a child's risk of cancer may no longer be enough.
The team, though, confesses the results are only preliminary, as the link between these mutated genes and cancer is inconsistent depending on the type of cancer. But this can already be a foundation of pediatric precise medicine.
The study is already published in New England Journal of Medicine.