Scientists found surprising mutations in kids with cancer

More than 8 percent of children with cancer have unsuspected genetic mutations that could run in their families, researchers reported on Wednesday.

These mutations not only put the children at risk of future cancers, but can mean their parents, brothers and sisters also have an unusually high risk, the team at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis said.

The findings might not only lead to new approaches to testing kids and their families for cancer risks, but could lead to better ways to treat them, as well, the team wrote in their report, published in the New England Journal of Medicine.

The team at St. Jude and Washington University in St. Louis tested more than 1,100 children treated for cancer and found 8.5 percent of them had cancer-causing mutations in so-called germline cells, meaning they were likely to have been inherited.

Forty percent of the children had no known family history of cancer. And some of the mutations were in the BRCA genes known to raise the risk of breast and ovarian cancer in adults - but not linked to childhood cancers.

"Almost one in 10 of the children carries a mutation that increases their risk of cancer," Dr. James Downing, CEO of St. Jude told NBC News.

"The children with identified mutations should undergo special screening," said Dr. Jaime Vengoechea Barrios, a medical geneticist at Emory University who was not involved in the study.

"Their relatives need to be tested to see if they have the mutation and, if they do, they should also have the additional screening. Of note, insurance companies often initially refuse to pay for this kind of genetic testing."

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