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(Ivanhoe Newswire) -- Scientists have uncovered a genetic fingerprint to help predict whether a patients liver cancer will return after treatment.
A team of international researchers studied tissue samples of roughly 300 liver cancer patients to uncover more than 180 genes linked to patient survival. Interestingly, the predictive fingerprint was discovered not in the tumor, but in normal tissue surrounding it.
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Hepatoceullular carcinoma, a type of liver cancer, is often found early, yet even after treatment, the disease often returns and many times leads to death. Knowing the chance of recurrence may improve treatment because doctors may be encouraged to pursue more aggressive therapies in high-risk patients and monitor their health more closely. Further work needs to be done before the liver cancer discovery can be used clinically.
In addition to the genetic discovery, the scientists revealed a new way to analyze genetic material in chemically preserved tissue samples often stored in hospitals and clinics. Our work reveals that it is indeed possible to access this biological trove, a step we hope will bolster future genomic discoveries throughout the scientific community, Todd Golub, M.D., senior author and director of the Cancer Program at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, in Cambridge, Mass., and an investigator at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston, was quoted as saying.
SOURCE: New England Journal of Medicine, published online October 15, 2008
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