We used an approach that we term ancestry-shift refinement mapping to investigate an association, originally discovered in a GWAS of a Chinese population, between rs2046210[T] and breast cancer susceptibility. The locus is on 6q25.1 in proximity to the C6orf97 and estrogen receptor α (ESR1) genes. We identified a panel of SNPs that are correlated with rs2046210 in Chinese, but not necessarily so in other ancestral populations, and genotyped them in breast cancer case∶control samples of Asian, European, and African origin, a total of 10,176 cases and 13,286 controls. We found that rs2046210[T] does not confer substantial risk of breast cancer in Europeans and Africans (OR = 1.04, P = 0.099, and OR = 0.98, P = 0.77, respectively). Rather, in those ancestries, an association signal arises from a group of less common SNPs typified by rs9397435. The rs9397435[G] allele was found to confer risk of breast cancer in European (OR = 1.15, P = 1.2×10−3), African (OR = 1.35, P = 0.014), and Asian (OR = 1.23, P = 2.9×10−4) population samples. Combined over all ancestries, the OR was 1.19 (P = 3.9×10−7), was without significant heterogeneity between ancestries (Phet = 0.36) and the SNP fully accounted for the association signal in each ancestry. Haplotypes bearing rs9397435[G] are well tagged by rs2046210[T] only in Asians. The rs9397435[G] allele showed associations with both estrogen receptor positive and estrogen receptor negative breast cancer. Using early-draft data from the 1,000 Genomes project, we found that the risk allele of a novel SNP (rs77275268), which is closely correlated with rs9397435, disrupts a partially methylated CpG sequence within a known CTCF binding site. These studies demonstrate that shifting the analysis among ancestral populations can provide valuable resolution in association mapping.

Abstract. A retrospective observational study was conducted on patients diagnosed with serine/threonine-protein kinase B-Raf (BRAF)-mutated metastatic melanoma, who underwent first-line therapy with BRAF and mitogen-activated protein kinase kinase (MEK) inhibitors (vemurafenib, dabrafenib or a combination of dabrafenib and trametinib) at the Miguel Servet University Hospital (Zaragoza, Spain) between November, 2011 and August, 2015. The aim of this study was to analyse the toxicity produced by BRAF and MEK inhibitors. The most common toxicities were similar to those published in clinical trials, particularly arthralgia, alopecia and photosensitivity in the vemurafenib group; asthenia, hyperkeratosis and dry skin in the dabrafenib group; and diarrhoea and dry skin in the dabrafenib plus trametinib group. Toxicities that had not been described in clinical trials were also identified. Thus, the present study confirmed that the results obtained in clinical trials are similar to those obtained in clinical practice.

Patients with apparently sporadic TNBC younger than 50 years and a non-informative family history are candidates for germline genetic testing of BRCA1.

This work demonstrates that clinical and inherent tumor characteristics define a subset of patients with gastrointestinal stromal tumor (GIST) with increased likelihood to achieve durable response to first-line imatinib therapy. Patients reaching ≥5 years on imatinib have a greater chance of remaining progression free over time, although the disease is unlikely to be cured. Imatinib is well tolerated for >5 years, and emergent toxicities are overall manageable. Resistance to imatinib emerging in patients with GISTs after long-term imatinib treatment does not involve polyclonal expansion of KIT secondary mutations.

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