"At this level of risk, women may wish to consider having their ovaries removed after having children, to prevent ovarian cancer occurring” were the words of Professor Nazneen Rahman, head of genetics and epidemiology, when he revealed that about one in 70 woman is at risk of developing ovarian cancer, and one in 11 among women who carry a faulty copy of a gene called RAD51D.

This revelation also forms the finding of a study conducted by scientists at the Institute of Cancer Research, which is associated with The Royal Marsden hospital in London.

The finding of the ovarian cancer gene is considered to be the most significant discovery in this field, in last 10 years. The study that got published in the journal Nature Genetics, compared the DNA of women, from 911 families with ovarian and breast cancer to DNA from a control group of more than 10,000 people from the general population.

They found eight faults in RAD51D gene in women with cancer, compared with only one in the control group.

Dr. Rahman said the recognition of RAD51D, among women, could be treated with PARP inhibitors, a new class of drugs, but tests in laboratory found that cells with faulty RAD51D were highly sensitive to this class of drugs.