Mutated versions of a gene called PALB2 can dramatically increase a woman's risk of breast cancer, a new study has found.

Women carrying the PALB2 mutation have a one in three chance of developing breast cancer by the age of 70, British researchers report in the Aug. 7 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.

The risk is even higher for women with a family history of breast cancer, the investigators found.

"If a mutation carrier has a strong family history, the risk would go up to about six in 10 by age 70," said senior study author Marc Tischkowitz, a researcher with the department of medical genetics at the University of Cambridge.

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Those odds place PALB2 just behind the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes as a top genetic risk factor for breast cancer, Tischkowitz said.

Women who carry a mutated form of either of the BRCA genes have a 45 percent to 65 percent risk of breast cancer by age 70, according to the U.S. National Cancer Institute.

Researchers first identified the PALB2 gene in 2006, and it was further associated with breast cancer in a study published in 2007, Tischkowitz said.

This new study provides the first solid evidence regarding the breast cancer risk associated with PALB2, said Dr. Roger Greenberg, an associate professor of cancer biology with the Abramson Family Cancer Research Institute at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine in Philadelphia.

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New breast cancer gene mutation raises risk dramatically

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