New Mutation Implicated in Ovarian Cancer

British researchers have found that women who carry a mutated copy of the RAD51D gene have a one in 11 chance of developing ovarian cancer, reports Reuters' Kate Kelland. The researchers, who recently published their study in Nature Genetics, compared the DNA of women from 911 families with breast and ovarian cancer to DNA from a control group and found eight "faults" in the RAD51D gene of the cancer patients compared with only one in the control group, Kelland says. Previous studies had already shown that mutated RAD51D is sensitive to PARP inhibitors. The study's senior author tells Kelland that this discovery may lead to the use of PARP inhibitors to treat women with mutated RAD51D ovarian cancer.