Researchers from the Mayo Clinic Comprehensive Cancer Center and the Mayo Clinic Center for Individualized Medicine are studying a rare genetic condition called Familial Adenomatous Polyposis (FAP) looking for potential ways to prevent colorectal cancer in the general population at an earlier more treatable stage. The researchers’ findings are published in GUT.

Researchers found that using the drug erlotinib, which blocks a specific cancer pathway called EFGR, led to a 30 percent reduction in the number of polyps formed in the bowel of patients with FAP.

Mayo Clinic release