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A team of researchers led by Yale University scientists have been able to quantify the factors that cause changes in the DNA to initiate cancer growth in tumors.
The paper, published in Molecular Biology and Evolution, provides insight over how much control humans have over developing cancer across time.
“We can now answer the question — to the best of our knowledge — ‘What is the underlying source of the key mutations that changed those cells to become a cancer instead of remaining normal tissue?’” said Jeffrey Townsend, professor at Yale School of Public Health.
He explained that by combining the knowledge of factors that cause specific mutations to alter the genome in tissues, with the study’s method that quantifies the contribution of each mutation to cancer, it was possible to assign a specific percentage of blame to known and unknown but identified factors in the emergence of cancer.
The report mentioned that some cancers are more controllable than others.
Benefitting the population
Townsend suggested that local populations or professions who suffer from inordinately high levels of cancer could use the findings to discover instances of exposure to carcinogenic substances.
“Public health intervention targeted at minimizing exposure to these preventable signatures would mitigate disease severity by preventing the accumulation of mutations that directly contribute to the cancer phenotype,” the researchers wrote in the study.
Source - Yale School of Public Health
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