SOME of the most devastating forms of cancer have genetic similarities even though they strike different body parts.

The new research - one study focused on a form of leukaemia, in the New England Journal of Medicine, and a second on endometrial cancer, in Nature - could provide a pathway to new, more effective treatments.

The findings, released on Thursday, challenge the previous approach of classifying tumours based on the body part where they are first observed, and add to the growing trend of differentiating tumours based on their genetic profile.

The research is part of a vast program by the National Institutes of Health known as the Cancer Genome Atlas Project, which aims to decode the genetic pattern of 10,000 tumours from 20 different cancers.

Scientists have already found genetic relationships between certain forms of breast, lung, and colon cancers.

For example, one type of breast cancer presents genetic mutations very similar to the ones found in ovarian cancer, and colon cancers often have mutations found in breast cancer.

The researchers said about half of all lung cancers could respond to treatments used against other kinds of tumours.

The latest study found the most aggressive form of endometrial cancer, which affects the uterine lining, is similar to more grave forms of breast and ovarian cancer.

"The clinical and pathologic features of uterine serous carcinoma and high-grade serous ovarian carcinoma, or HGSOC, are quite similar," wrote the authors of the study published in Nature, which analysed more than 370 tumours.

Likewise, "HGSOC shares many similar molecular features with basal-like breast carcinoma," added the team, which was directed by Douglas Levine of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, in New York.

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Genetic links in aggressive cancer

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