Appendix cancer: genetic mutation testing

Back in 2010 when I was researching treatments for appendiceal adenocarninoma, I learned that appendix cancer is often treated with colon cancer chemotherapy even though appendix cancer is thought to be genetically distinct from colon cancer. There still aren’t any appendix cancer-specific drugs but some patients do respond to the standard colon cancer drugs.  To understand why, scientists are doing research into the genetic differences between the two types of cancer and have found that there are distinct genetic mutations between appendix cancer genes and colon cancer genes.

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