Ovarian cancer historical perspective

Editor-In-Chief: C. Michael Gibson, M.S., M.D. [1]; Associate Editor(s)-in-Chief: Huda A. Karman, M.D.

Overview

Ovarian cancer was first linked to gene mutations by Dr. King who found and named BRCA1 gene on chromosome 17 in 1990 and BRCA2 gene on chromosome 13 in 1994.

In the 16th and 17th centuries, Dr. Lusitani and Dr. Tulp from Holand, believed that cancers are contagious after they noticed the presence of breast cancers in the same household members.^[1]^[2]^[3]
In 1990, Dr. Mary-Claire King, the professor of genome sciences from Chicago, was the first one to link the single gene on chromosome 17 to many breast and ovarian cancers, after many years of research to find evidence that there is a genetic pattern linked to the incidence of complex diseases.
In 1991, King named the gene that is linked to many breast and ovarian cancers as BRCA1.^[4]
In 1994, King also found and named the second gene, BRCA2 on chromosome 13.^[5]
1996, King and the Breast Cancer research foundation, conducted a study on women of Ashkenazi Jewish ancestry in NYC and also on Palestinian women, which lead to the definitive confirmation that mutations in BRCA1 and BRCA2 is linked to the incidence of ovarian and breast cancer.

↑ Winer E, Gralow J, Diller L, Karlan B, Loehrer P, Pierce L; et al. (2009). “Clinical cancer advances 2008: major research advances in cancer treatment, prevention, and screening–a report from the American Society of Clinical Oncology”. J Clin Oncol. 27 (5): 812–26. doi:10.1200/JCO.2008.21.2134. PMC 2645086. PMID 19103723.
↑ Diamandopoulos GT (1996). “Cancer: an historical perspective”. Anticancer Res. 16 (4A): 1595–602. PMID 8712676.
↑ Hajdu SI (2011). “A note from history: landmarks in history of cancer, part 1”. Cancer. 117 (5): 1097–102. doi:10.1002/cncr.25553. PMID 20960499.
↑ Apostolou, Paraskevi; Fostira, Florentia (2013). “Hereditary Breast Cancer: The Era of New Susceptibility Genes”. BioMed Research International. 2013: 1–11. doi:10.1155/2013/747318. ISSN 2314-6133.
↑ Godet, Inês; M. Gilkes, Daniele (2017). “BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutations and treatment strategies for breast cancer”. Integrative Cancer Science and Therapeutics. 4 (1). doi:10.15761/ICST.1000228. ISSN 2056-4546.