Researchers in China and the United States have identified mutations of two genes which appear to make ethnic Chinese more susceptible to lung cancer.
Their finding involves two genes, ABCB1 and ABCC1, which were previously thought to be linked to eliminating carcinogens from the lungs and protecting them against inhaled toxins.
In their study, the researchers analyzed the genes of 500 patients with lung cancer and 517 cancer-free participants in southeastern China.
“The investigators found that certain (gene) variants were found much more often in individuals with lung cancer than in cancer-free controls,” they wrote in a statement.
Among those with cancer, 31 percent were found with a certain mutation of the ABCB1 gene, while 27 percent were found with a variant of the ABCC1 gene.
But those same mutations were found in only 15 percent and 12 percent of participants in the cancer-free group.
“The variant (of ABCB1) was particularly associated with an increased risk of cancer in women and in individuals under age 60 years. It also was linked to a major type of lung cancer called adenocarcinoma,” the researchers said.
Read more at Reuters
