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A distinct histological subtype of ovarian cancer, separate from the more common serous subtype already covered on this site's Ovarian Cancer page. The variant here sits near a gene pair — IFNL3/IFNL4 — almost entirely known for a different disease: predicting how the immune system responds to hepatitis C.
What this condition connects to
Prevalence
A less common histological subtype of epithelial ovarian cancer. Phelan et al. 2017 pooled 25,509 cases and 40,941 controls across multiple genome-wide genotyping projects to find new susceptibility loci for several ovarian cancer histotypes, including mucinous carcinoma. The variant on this page, near IFNL3/IFNL4, is confirmed in the GWAS Catalog's association records for this study (PMID:28346442).
Inheritance
A common variant with a statistically strong, consistently replicated association in the GWAS Catalog's own records, near a gene pair with no established mechanistic role in ovarian cancer — their known biology is in the immune response to hepatitis C.
Mucinous ovarian carcinoma is one of several histological subtypes of epithelial ovarian cancer, distinguished under the microscope by mucin-producing cells. It is less common than the serous subtype already covered on this site's Ovarian Cancer page, and — like clear-cell ovarian cancer, also catalogued separately here — its genetics do not simply mirror the disease as a whole.
A large study, and a gene pair known for a different disease entirely
Phelan et al. 2017 pooled data from multiple genome-wide genotyping projects into 25,509 cases and 40,941 controls across several ovarian cancer histotypes, identifying new susceptibility loci for serous, mucinous and endometrioid subtypes.
The variant on this page, rs688187, is reported in the GWAS Catalog's association records — checked directly rather than assumed from the paper's own abstract, which names only its two headline new mucinous loci by chromosome location — near IFNL3 and IFNL4. Those two genes are known almost entirely for something else: they are the interferon-lambda locus famous in a completely different field for predicting whether someone clears a hepatitis C infection on their own, and how well they respond to interferon-based treatment for it. No established biology connects that immune pathway to ovarian cancer, and this page reports the statistical finding — consistent across three independent association records, with p-values from 1×10⁻⁸ to 1×10⁻²² — without inventing a mechanism to bridge the two.
Clinical detail
What is actually diagnosed and treated here
Mucinous ovarian carcinoma is diagnosed by tissue biopsy and histopathology, not by genotype. Treatment follows standard ovarian cancer protocols — surgery and chemotherapy, tailored by stage and subtype — decided by an oncologist. Nothing on this page changes that.
The IFNL3/IFNL4 connection here is a real, statistically strong finding from a very large study, not a mechanistic explanation. Those genes' well-established role is in the immune response to viral infection, particularly hepatitis C; nothing here shows that pathway causes or drives mucinous ovarian carcinoma, only that this locus and this cancer subtype are statistically linked in the data.
Related here
Ovarian Cancer covers the more common serous subtype. Ovarian clear-cell cancer is a third subtype, also catalogued on its own page. Each has been found to carry its own genetics rather than sharing one set of risk variants across the whole disease.
Related variants MyGeneLog™ checks for
What a 23andMe/AncestryDNA export or raw VCF can and can't tell you about Mucinous Ovarian Carcinoma comes down to these specific, well-studied positions — not a diagnosis.
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Quoting this page
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Can this variant diagnose mucinous ovarian carcinoma?
No. It is diagnosed by tissue biopsy and histopathology. This variant comes from a genome-wide association study and is not used diagnostically.
Is this the same as the Ovarian Cancer page already on this site?
No — that page covers the more common serous subtype. Mucinous ovarian carcinoma is a distinct histological subtype with its own genetics, catalogued separately, the same way ovarian clear-cell cancer is.
Why does a gene known for hepatitis C show up on an ovarian cancer page?
IFNL3 and IFNL4 are best known for predicting the immune response to hepatitis C infection and treatment — a completely different disease. Their appearance here is a real, statistically strong finding from a large ovarian cancer study, reported honestly without inventing a mechanism that connects the two.
How large was the study behind this variant?
25,509 cases and 40,941 controls, pooled from multiple genome-wide genotyping projects across several ovarian cancer histotypes.
Free to reuse. This page's text is original writing from freely-available research, licensed CC BY 4.0 — reuse it, including commercially, with attribution to MyGeneLog™. It's general research-derived information, not medical advice or a diagnosis — see Terms of Use.