Military Pilots’ DNA May Hold Key to What’s Causing Their Prostate Cancers
Radars, magnetrons, and other toxic exposures may leave unique signatures on aviators’ cells, giving researchers the first evidence of cause.
By Tara Copp
Senior Pentagon Reporter, Defense One
February 1, 2022 01:13 PM ET
While military pilots are getting the first acknowledgment that they are at higher risk of certain types of cancers, they still don’t know why, whether it’s something in the cockpits or on the flight decks—or something completely unrelated—that they were exposed to during their flying careers.
But one study is betting the answer may be found in their cells and DNA.
Dr. Jeffrey Jones, a career flight surgeon, retired Navy captain, and current chief of urology at Houston’s VA medical center, is shaping a study to look at the one of the markers that various toxic exposures leave on the cells of military pilots who have been diagnosed with prostate cancer. This marker, called DNA methylation, often precedes a mutation that leads to cancer, Jones said.
“If we find these areas of methylation, often the cancer is very close by there,” Jones said. “In other words, there's been a field change associated with some exposure that produced methylation, and then later, the cell’s development of frank carcinoma. So there seems to be a progression from ‘normal,’ to a methylation event, that leads to a subsequent cancer.”
https://www.defenseone.com/threats/2022/02/military-pilots-dna-may-hold-key-whats-causing-their-prostate-cancers/361439/
