Gene is a cancer risk to Latinas too
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A gene known to give many Jewish women a high risk of cancer also puts many Latinas at high risk, researchers reported in Chicago.
In a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Assn., researchers said they found that 3.5% of Latinas in a Northern California breast cancer registry had the BRCA1 genetic mutation, compared with 8.3% of Ashkenazic Jews and 2.2% of non-Ashkenazic white women.
The BRCA1 gene mutation raises the risk of breast and ovarian cancer, researchers said, with the risk of developing breast cancer by age 70 put at 65%.
The lowest incidence of the mutation was found among Asian American women at 0.5%, and it was found among 1.3% of black women.
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