© 2003 BMJ Publishing Group Ltd & Association of Clinical Pathologists
ECHO
Toxins are linked to cancer of the bile duct
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The first study to test for DNA adducts as a marker for intrahepatic cancer of the bile duct has lent more support to the hypothesis that toxins damaging DNA lead to cancer. Greater exposure to environmental toxins may explain the rapid rise in deaths from this cancer in Western countries over the past 30 years, suggest the authors.
Patients with the cancer had more DNA adducts in samples of their tumour or adjacent to their tumour than patients without (median relative amounts/108 nucleotides: tumour DNA 7.2 (range 1.848.4); tumour adjacent DNA 8.6 (1.251.6) v non-cancer DNA 2.9 (0.611.5)). The pattern and density of DNA adducts differed between tumour DNA and tumour adjacent DNA and between each of these and non-cancer DNA.
Tumour tissue was taken from 32 men with primary intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma and tumour adjacent tissue from 28 of them. Cystic ducts were obtained from seven cancer free patients during
