Scientists find clue to smokers' cancer risk

Main Category: Cancer / Oncology
Article Date: 24 Aug 2003 - 0:00 PDT


The possibility of a blood test that can shed light on a smoker's risk of developing cancer is raised today.

Scientists have discovered that the 'caps' at the end of chromosomes - telomeres - that stop them degrading may be associated with risk of smoking-related cancers.

Although telomeres shorten as we grow old, studies have shown that their length varies considerably among people of the same age.

Those with short telomeres, as measured in white blood cells, appear to be at an increased risk of bladder, head and neck, lung and renal cell cancers - diseases associated with cigarette smoking.

According to a study in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute by Dr Xifeng Wu, of the University of Texas M D Anderson Cancer Centre, smokers with short telomeres had a substantially greater risk for tobacco-related cancers than people who never smoked and had short telomeres or those who smoked but had longer telomeres.

Obesity after the menopause raises a woman's risk of breast cancer by almost a fifth, researchers have found.

Fat produced excess oestrogen and the hormone was known to fuel the majority of breast cancers, Cancer Research UK experts reported in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.

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