Tauranga stomach cancer research breaks new ground

Ten-year-old Noel Fraser is growing up knowing that his father, brother and sister all had their stomachs removed because of hereditary cancer - and that he has a strong chance of needing the surgeon's knife himself.

But thanks to pioneering genetic research on his Tauranga family and a groundbreaking surgical technique, he is almost certain to live a long life.

A study of Noel's extended family has led to ground-breaking findings in stomach cancer research.

Dunedin scientists are also using findings from the Bay of Plenty study to devise the first-ever blood test for stomach cancer, eliminating the need for invasive endoscopy.

Noel is a member of Tauranga's McLeod family, which suffers from high rates of stomach cancer. In the past nine years 15 family members have had their stomachs removed after tests found they had a cancerous gene.

Noel will be tested for the gene when he turns 14.

If he tests positive for the gene, he will have regular screening at Tauranga Hospital to detect any cancer.

A third of the family have the gene mutation and of those 70 per cent will develop stomach cancer.

Researchers have tested 130 family members in the past nine years looking for a rogue cancerous gene, which was identified in 1997.

A purpose-built Kimihauora clinic was set up at the Maori family's Tamapahore Marae.

When the stomach is removed, the oesophagus is attached to the small intestine, which acts as a substitute stomach. Patients eat small meals five times a day and get regular injections of vitamin B12.

Geneticist Parry Guilford, who found a mutated E-cadherin gene in family members in 1997, said working with the McLeods had advanced stomach cancer research in general.

Fifty families around the world with different mutations of the same gene had been helped through the research initiated by the McLeods.

"That's all thanks to those McLeods down at Kimihauora."

- NZPA