Origins of blood cancer traced to early childhood, decades before diagnosis

Reuters Health - 17/12/2020 - Genetic mutations linked to myeloproliferative neoplasms (MPN) may occur during childhood or before birth and proliferate for years before cancer onset, new research suggests. "Our results finally answer the common question posed by patients, 'How long has this cancer been growing?' as we were able to study how these particular cancers developed over the entire lifetime of individual patients," Dr. Jyoti Nangalia of the Wellcome Sanger Institute and the University of Cambridge, in the U.K., said in a news release. She presented the study at the American Society of Hematology (ASH) virtual annual meeting. In most patients, myeloproliferative neoplasms are driven by a genetic mutation called JAK2-V617F. By assessing this mutation and other cancer-related mutations, the researchers were able to trace the ancestry of different blood cells and estimate the time at which each patient acquired JAK2-V617F and other mutations. They...

Please login to read the full text of the article.

If you have no account yet, please register now.

Posted on 17 December, 20205 August, 2021