"Interestingly, four women were found to have a rare mutation in BRCA (K3326*), which has thus far been considered benign for ovarian cancer, and therefore was not identified in the initial BRCA1/BRCA2 screening. However, it has since been established as a risk factor for lung, oral and pancreatic cancers," Stafford said. "We believe this genetic variant may have a small effect alone, but could be disease-causing when inherited along with another mutation of similar effect. This hypothesis comes from the observation that two of the women with the K3326* mutation also have a second pathogenic mutation. Future work is necessary to test these genetic variants in a wet lab setting."