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A team of scientists at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Centre (New York) have been testing BLMAsh mutations in 1244 colon cancer patients and comparing these with 1839 healthy volunteers. Almost two percent of the colon cancer patients had the gene. The normal 1%.
Apparently, it was previously known that individuals with two BLM genes mutated were at increased risk, but this is the first time a single mutation has been linked. BLMAsh is most common in Ashkenazi Jewish people, with about one in a hundred people carriers.
The next step is to study how likely individuals with the mutation develop polyps.