A genome-wide association study (GWAS) has identified ten risk loci for female genital tract polyps, a poster and abstract presented in Amsterdam at the 40th annual meeting of the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology has shown.
Female genital tract polyps are associated with infertility and some can develop into endometrial cancer. Researchers from University of Tartu, Estonia and Karolinska Institute and Karolinska University Hospital, Stockholm, Sweden, carried out GWAS and phenotype-wide association studies of these polyps and discovered some of the risk loci have already been linked to cancer. They also showed that polyps are associated with increased prevalence of endometriosis, irregular and excessive menstruation, uterine fibroids and benign and cancerous growths in the uterus.
Researchers plan on carrying out further analysis using UK Biobank data.
