Gene Clue to Cancer Survival
<i> From Times staff and wire service reports </i>
Soviet scientists report that the presence of a single gene appears to accurately predict chances of survival in patients suffering from stomach cancer.
Addressing an international conference on cancer and AIDS in Venice, Italy, Dr. Fjodor Kisseljov of the Moscow Cancer Research Center said Moscow hospitals already are using the so-called myc oncogene--a growth gene present in all cells in the human body--to indicate a stomach cancer patient’s chances of survival. Out of about 60 patients tested since the early 1980s, roughly half had a negative result and still were alive today, he said, while those with a positive result died either of stomach cancer or of a metastasized cancer within two years.
