Early cancer linked to enzyme lack.Even among families with an inherited inherited received by inheritance. inherited achondroplastic dwarfism see achondroplastic dwarfism. inherited combined immunodeficiency see combined immune deficiency syndrome (disease). predisposition predisposition /pre·dis·po·si·tion/ (-dis-po-zish´un) a latent susceptibility to disease that may be activated under certain conditions. pre·dis·po·si·tion n. 1. to breast cancer, the age at which the disease actually strikes shows surprising variability. Researchers can't explain why some women get breast cancer at age 45 and others at age 30. An inherited defect in an enzyme that transforms some carcinogens Carcinogens Substances in the environment that cause cancer, presumably by inducing mutations, with prolonged exposure. Mentioned in: Colon Cancer, Rectal Cancer into less toxic substances could offer a clue to these differences. A group of researchers found that women with a family history of breast cancer and with mutations in gstt, the gene for the enzyme glutathione-S-transferase theta Theta A measure of the rate of decline in the value of an option due to the passage of time. Theta can also be referred to as the time decay on the value of an option. If everything is held constant, then the option will lose value as time moves closer to the maturity of the option. , developed breast cancer significantly earlier than comparable women without the mutation. "Our findings suggest that an inability to metabolize me·tab·o·lize v. 1. To subject to metabolism. 2. To produce by metabolism. 3. To undergo change by metabolism. metabolize to subject to or be transformed by metabolism. carcinogens may [result in] early breast cancer among women with family histories," says study collaborator Timothy R. Rebbeck, an epidemiologist at the University of Pennsylvania (body, education) University of Pennsylvania - The home of ENIAC and Machiavelli. http://upenn.edu/. Address: Philadelphia, PA, USA. in Philadelphia. Speculating that mutations in gstt may make women more susceptible to carcinogens, the researchers studied 185 breast cancer patients with a family history of the disease. Among the 40 percent of women with breast cancer before age 40, those with a mutated gstt gene developed the disease, on average, at age 31.3; those with a normal gstt developed the cancer at age 34.6, the researchers found. They uncovered no association with this gene among women who had no family history of breast cancer. Rebbeck notes that further study is needed to understand how important gstt mutations are in early breast cancer. |
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