More than one year ago, scientists at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Md., discovered a mutated gene, carried by 1 percent of individuals of Ashkenazi descent, that indicated a predisposition to developing breast cancer. Last week, scientists at The Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Md., and the Howard Hughes Research Institute in Bethesda, Md., reported that approximately 6 percent of Jews of Ashkenazi descent carry a mutated gene that doubles a person's risk of colon cancer. Since those findings were released, genetic counseling services in the metropolitan area have been flooded with calls by individuals concerned that a family history of colon cancer may lead to the inevitable.
Colon cancer is the third most common type of cancer in the United States.
One place that has received, and certainly will continue to receive calls is the Lombardi Cancer Center at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., one of the premier facilities for the treatment of cancer. Caryn Lerman, Ph.D., is a professor of medicine and psychiatry and the director of the cancer genetics program at Georgetown. It is her job, and that of her staff, to counsel individuals before and after they are tested. Lerman also directs laboratory research and structures educational programming. Her clinic provides clinical genetic testing for breast and colon cancer.