Cancer Health Home>>Cancer>>Health news Provided by: RELAXNEWS Written by: Relaxnews May. 3, 2013

Some of the most devastating forms of cancer have genetic similarities even though they strike different body parts, according to new studies out Thursday.

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

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

Thanks to that analysis, scientists had 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 around 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 analyzed more than 370 tumors.

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.

See more here:
U.S. studies find genetic links in aggressive cancers

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