Genes map study finds clues to pancreatic cancer (Reuters)

[eppur_se_muova]

By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Editor
WASHINGTON | Thu Jan 20, 2011 2:25pm EST

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Experts in the genetics of cancer said on Thursday they have found out why some people can live for years with the same kind of rare pancreatic cancer that affects Apple CEO Steve Jobs.

They identified new genes that, when mutated in a certain way, appear to cause a relatively less harmful form of pancreatic neuroendocrine tumor.

Patients with these mutations lived twice as long as those whose tumors carried other mutations, the team at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore report in the journal Science.

"This is the new molecular view of cancer. The genetic makeup of the cancer will determine what the management (for) this person would be," Nickolas Papadopoulos, one of the researchers who led the study, said in a telephone interview.

Pancreatic cancer is one of the deadliest cancers, killing 95 percent of patients within five years.
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more: http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE70J67T20110120

[bettyellen]

1. kick for Andy.