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A team of Yale University researchers have identified a genetic marker that can help predict the risk of developing ovarian cancer, a hard to detect and often deadly form of cancer.

Reporting online Tuesday in journal Cancer Research, the team showed that a variant of the KRAS oncogene was present in 25 percent of all ovarian cancer patients, compared to six percent of the general population. In addition, this variant was found in 61 percent of ovarian cancer patients with a family history of breast and ovarian cancer, suggesting that this marker may be a new marker of ovarian cancer risk for these families, said the researchers.

"For many women out there with a strong family history of ovarian cancer who previously have had no identified genetic cause for their family's disease; this might be it for them," said Joanne Weidhaas, associate professor of therapeutic radiology and co-senior author of the study. "Our findings support that the KRAS-variant is an new genetic marker of ovarian cancer risk."

Researchers also found that women with the KRAS-variant tend to develop cancer after menopause.

Because ovarian cancer is difficult to diagnose and thus usually found at advanced stages, finding new markers of increased ovarian cancer risk is critical, the researchers said.