A study led by researchers at the Keck School of Medicine of the University of Southern California (USC) has found that one of seven genetic risk factors previously identified as increasing the probability of developing prostate cancer also increases the probability of developing colorectal cancer. As in the previous prostate cancer study, which was also conducted by USC researchers and published in the April 2007 edition of Nature Genetics, the colorectal cancer risk factor is located in a region of the human genome devoid of known genes on chromosome 8. The study’s complete findings will be published in the July 8 online edition of Nature Genetics.
