Gene raises cancer risk for Latinas
From Times Staff and Wire Reports
A gene known to give many Jewish women a high risk of cancer also puts many U.S. Latino women at high risk, U.S. researchers reported this week in the Journal of the American Medical Assn.
They found that 3.5% of Latinas entered in a Northern California breast cancer registry had the BRCA1 genetic mutation, compared with 8.3% of Ashkenazic Jews and 2.2% of non-Ashkenazic white women.
The BRCA1 gene mutation raises the risk of breast and ovarian cancer, with the risk of developing breast cancer by age 70 put at 65%, the researchers said.
