A Newfoundland woman who has seen a generation of her family die from a rare form of stomach cancer is bringing new hope to people who may face the same fate.
Samantha Hansford is part of a British Columbia team of researchers whose work identifies the probability that certain people have of getting hereditary diffuse gastric cancer, a rare type of cancer that has affected numerous Newfoundland families. Many people have opted to have their stomachs removed after the gene has been detected.
'My mother, after she found out that she tested positive, was informed by her geneticist that screening your stomach every so often won't detect this cancer at an early stage. The best way to prevent the cancer is to get your stomach completely removed. So, that's what she did,'- Samantha Hansford
"It certainly means a lot for me and it means a lot for a small number of families around the world that have been affected by this rare disease that has a really high mortality rate," said Hansford, whose interest is both personal and professional.
"Gastric cancer is the third leading cause of cancer deaths worldwide. So, having this research behind it is pretty groundbreaking."
Hansford, 26, grew up in St. John's before completing a graduate program at the University of British Columbia. She currently works as a research assistant at the B.C. Cancer Agency, which released new research this month that focused on carriers of the deadly gene behind the cancer.
Interview with Samantha Hansford6:01
The findings show that 70 per cent of the men who carry the gene will develop gastric cancer by the time they reach 80, while 56 per cent of women will develop the disease. Additionally, 42 per cent of the women with the gene also risk developing breast cancer.
Hansford said the research is groundbreaking because the findings better arm people who carry the cancer-causing gene known as CDH1 in understanding the chances they have of developing this particular stomach cancer.
It also identifies other gene mutations that increase the risk for people not carrying the CDH1 gene.
Past studies were small, looking at fewer than a dozen families whose members have the gene.
The study released last week involved 75 families and is the largest of its kind to date.
Family 'riddled' with rare cancer
Hansford says the findings are very personal, as the toll that stomach cancer has taken on her family is what led her into the scientific research field.
"My grandmother was diagnosed with breast cancer in the late '90s. She lost seven of her siblings to either gastric cancer — or, stomach cancer — or breast cancer," she said.
"She's buried seven of her siblings alone. She's survived both breast cancer and she was diagnosed with stomach cancer as well in 2002, the very same year and actually the very same week that my aunt Arleen, her daughter, was dying of this exact form of cancer at the age of 40. So, our family is very riddled with it."
Hansford was a teenager in 2006 when Dr. David Huntsman, a St. John's-raised cancer geneticist at the B.C. Cancer Agency and the University of British Columbia looked at her family's long and painful history with gastric and breast cancer and identified CDH1 as the killer gene.
"Because it carries such a high mortality rate, it means that it is very, very difficult to detect at an early stage. So, the main and only way to prevent stomach cancer if you carry the mutation is to get your stomach prophylactically removed," she told CBC News.
"My mother, after she found out that she tested positive, was informed by her geneticist that screening your stomach every so often won't detect this cancer at an early stage. The best way to prevent the cancer is to get your stomach completely removed. So, that's what she did," she said.
"And my uncle, when he found out he was positive, he actually went through the surgery as well."
Family connection drove research interest
Hansford also underwent the genetic testing as part of Huntsman's work when she was a teenager and found out that she does not carry the gene. (Neither does her only sister, Erika.)
Interview with Geralyn Hansford3:12
It was his work that attracted Hansford to the field of scientific research. She completed a degree in biochemistry at Memorial University, and then decided to contact Huntsman who was working in British Columbia.
"I basically wrote him and said, 'Can I come out and see if I have an interest in this research,' and he decided to take me on as a research assistant."
That move started her on the road to the research that was published last week in the medical journal JAMA Oncology. Hansford credits the B.C. Cancer Foundation and UBC for their help in funding and making the research possible.
"It's been extremely rewarding," she said.
"I feel like I'm carrying on my aunt's legacy and the last thing she wanted was for anybody else in our family to suffer from this disease. So, although the mutation has been found and it's kind of closed off with our family and done there, I feel like I'm helping other families all over the world to kind of not have to go through that same burden of uncertainty of not knowing if they're at risk or not."
Family proud of daughter's research work
Hansford's mother Geralyn, whose surgery to remove her stomach was done nine years ago, says she is bursting with pride over her daughter's involvement in the research.
Geralyn Hansford had her stomach removed nine years ago as a pre-emptive move against the possibility of being diagnosed with the rare gastric cancer that has ravaged her family. (Submitted by Geralyn Hansford)
"It's a personal thing. I made my decision based on the information that Dr. Huntsman had at the time, and I now know that I don't fear of living or dying with stomach cancer. And to know that Samantha and the team she has worked with at the BC Cancer Agency, the work that they're doing will help so many other people like it helped me almost nine years ago to make a decision that can save your life," Geralyn told me.
"It's mind-boggling to think how fortunate people are now that they have, that we have people like Samantha and Dr. Huntsman and his team of people working on this type of research. It's just wonderful."
Just days after the research team released its findings, Samantha found out she is moving home to St. John's in the fall. She received word she has been accepted to the medical school at Memorial University, where her sister Erika is already in her last year of residency. For Geralyn Hansford, to hear all this good news in the same week is a much-needed blessing for a family so familiar with bad news.
"To think that it was, unfortunately, through Arleen's death and the time leading up to her death was what helped both our daughters — Erika, who's in her last year of residency as a doctor and now Samantha in the field that she's in and now just most recently been accepted to med school here at university at Memorial — it was through that that they both decided to get in that field," she said.
"Arleen would be so proud."
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