Women who were carriers of BRCA1 or BRCA2 gene changes, or mutations, with an inherited form of ovarian cancer survived longer than women who were not carriers, said a study in the Journal of Clinical Oncology (Vol. 20, No. 2, 463-466).

The study adds to a growing body of research about genetics' role in ovarian cancer treatment.

In this study, expets in Israel looked at blood or tumor samples from 894 women, looking for BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutations. BRCA genes help prevent cancer when they are normal. But when they contain changes, they give women a 17% to 44% chance of developing ovarian cancer, according to the American Cancer Society (ACS). They also put women at high risk of developing breast cancer.

Of the women studied, 234 were found to have the BRCA change. Those women had a “significant difference in survival,” said the study authors. Among the women with invasive (advanced) ovarian cancer, BRCA carriers had a median survival of about four years, compared to about three years for non-carriers.

“Our findings, which are based on nationwide data, underline the relatively superior survival of BRCA carriers, irrespective of age, stage, and family history," the authors wrote. "The fact that the effect was present in all disease stages indicates that the results are not due to early detection of the disease among BRCA carriers."

The authors said some possible reasons for better survival could be that BRCA carriers have a slower rate of cell division, or perhaps a better response to chemotherapy. One drawback of this study was that all of the women might not have been given the same surgery/chemotherapy treatments.

Ovarian cancer is the sixth most common cancer in women, according to the ACS. There will be about 23,300 new cases in the US this year, and about 13,900 women will die of the disease. But only about 10% of the most common type of ovarian cancers are linked with the BRCA mutations.

Even so, a senior epidemiologist with the ACS said it’s important to look at BRCA changes in the search for a cure.

“As we learn more about how different sub-types of tumors differ in aggressiveness, response to treatment, etc., we can design more effective treatments that are specific to an individual tumor, and hopefully improve survival,” said Heather Feigelson, PhD, MPH.

“One limitation of this study is that the follow-up period was short, on average 2.5 years,” she said. “We need larger, population-based studies with longer follow-up to resolve this issue of what types of tumors have better prognosis.”