Description: SUNDAY, July 8 (HealthDay News) -- Compelling evidence from four studies confirms that a key change in DNA previously linked to prostate cancer also raises colon cancer risk, scientists report.

They stress that the risk to any individual carrier of the rs6983267 variant gene -- which is located on a region of chromosome 8 called 8q24 -- are relatively slight. Overall, carriers of this variant have about a 20 percent higher risk of developing a colorectal malignancy compared to non-carriers, the researchers said.

The gene's real power comes in its prevalence.

According to scientists, the number of people who carry the variant on region 8q24 includes about half of the populations studied, researchers say.

"In other words, it is very common in the general population," said Dr. Malcolm Dunlop, of Cancer Research UK and the University of Edinburgh, Scotland.

Dunlop, the lead investigator on one of three studies published in the July 8 online edition of Nature Genetics, told r