NYU Study Finds Additional Risk Factor for Melanoma in Younger Women’s Genetic Makeup
March 30, 2009
A genetic variation that has proven a risk factor for women with breast cancer may also be linked to why women younger than 40 are more likely to be diagnosed with melanoma than men of that age, according to a recent study at the New York University Medical School.
Elnaz F. Firoz, et al., determined that the genetic factor MDM2 SNP309 may account for why some women younger than 40 face almost a four times greater chance of developing melanoma than men of that age and women who are older.
The researchers evaluated 227 participants with “prospective melanoma” for MDM2 SNP309 and the related polymorphism, p53 Arg72Pro, according to the authors of the March 24, 2009, article titled “Association of MDM2 S_P309, Age of Onset, and Gender in Cutaneous Melanoma.” They isolated the DNA from patient blood samples and then studied the associations among MDM2 SNP309, p53 Arg72Pro, the age at diagnosis and the clinicopathologic features of melanoma.
The median age at diagnosis was 13 years earlier, age 46, for women with a SNP309 GG genotype compared to women with TG+TT genotypes, median age 59, concluded the researchers.
"If this number turns out to be reproducible, it is higher than a lot of the other clinical risk factors that we know, such as blistering sunburns, freckling and family history," said David Polsky, M.D., Ph.D., the lead author and associate professor of dermatology and director of the Pigmented Lesion Section of the Ronald O. Perelman Department of Dermatology at NYU School of Medicine in a press release at http://communications.med.nyu.edu/news/.
The study was published online in Clinical Cancer Research at http://clincancerres.aacrjournals.org on March 24, 2009.
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