Genes, chemicals and cancer: New report 11/7/02. By the Public Health Genetics Unit A new report reviews the available information on the interaction between genotype and environmental chemicals in the induction of cancer.

The report was published by the UK Government's Advisory Committee on Carcinogenicity of Chemicals in Food, Consumer Products and the Environment.

The Committee concluded that there is at present insufficient evidence for a public health benefit in screening individuals for any one polymorphism-environment interaction that has been proposed to increase cancer risk. However it conceded that more significant interactions might be discovered in the future, particularly as it becomes possible to analyse many different genetic variants at the same time.

The Committee was also critical of the value of many published studies in this field, noting in particular that study sizes are often too small and that many studies rely on hypotheses formulated after the data have been generated, increasing the possibility of bias.

Among its conclusions, the Committee recommends a tiered approach to assessing the importance of a proposed genotype-environment interaction, including evaluation of the strength and consistency of the epidemiological evidence, and confirmation that a credible mechanism exists for carcinogenicity by the genotype-chemical interaction.

The report includes an Annex in which an example genotype-environment interaction (smoking, GSTM1 polymorphism and susceptibility to lung cancer) is evaluated quantitatively. It is also accompanied by a lay summary, and background papers prepared by the Department of Health Toxicology Unit.

Article courtesy of the Public Health Genetics Unit .