Single Gene Found to Cause Deafness and Child’s Cancer

PHILADELPHIA —  Researchers have identified a gene that can cause two unrelated illnesses: a congenital deafness and a deadly cancer in children.

The discovery, reported in Monday’s issue of Nature Genetics, “confirms what geneticists have long believed, that different mutations in the same gene can cause different diseases,” said Beverly Emanuel, pediatrics professor at Children’s Hospital in Philadelphia.

Emanuel said the findings would allow faster diagnosis and treatment of alveolar rhabdomyosarcoma, a muscle cancer that strikes one in 100,000 children a year and kills half of those it afflicts.

There might also be potential for prenatal treatment of Waardenburg syndrome, which causes about 2% of all deafness.