deCODE genetics Announces Third Quarter 2008 Financi...(forms of breast cancer (about twice...)

twice the average risk in the general population), and the 1 percent of

women whose lifetime risk is roughly 36 percent (about three-times

average). According to American Cancer Society guidelines, women with a

lifetime risk of 20 percent or greater should receive annual MRI breast

screenings in additional to mammograms, and women at 15 to 20 percent

lifetime risk should talk with their doctors about the benefits and

limitations of adding MRI screening to their yearly mammogram.

Target Discovery

- Bladder cancer. deCODE and colleagues in the Netherlands discovered two

common single-letter variants in the human genome (SNPs) that confer

increased risk of urinary bladder cancer. Approximately 20% of people

of European descent carry two copies of the first variant, a version of

a SNP on chromosome 8q24, putting them at a 50% higher risk of

developing bladder cancer than those without the variant. Individuals

who carry two copies of a common version of another SNP on chromosome 3

were found to be at a 40% higher risk of the disease than non-carriers.

These are the best-replicated genetic variants ever linked to bladder

cancer risk, and the study analysed genotypic data from more than

40,000 patients and controls from Iceland, the Netherlands and eight

other European countries. These findings were folded into deCODEme and

may be combined with other risk variants to develop a disease-risk

diagnostic test.

- Skin cancer. deCODE discovered common versions of two single-letter

variations in the human genome (SNPs) that confer risk of basal cell

carcinoma (BCC), the most common cancer among people of European

ancestry. Unlike the four sets of SNPs previously found by deCODE to

confer risk of BCC and cutaneous melanoma, these new variants
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