Local researchers have discovered genetic mutations that could be the main cause of around ten percent of gastric cancer in Korea.

Cha Medical Center's cancer institute and Seoul National University College of Medicine announced on Thursday that they found a clue to the occurrence of microsatellite instability (MSI) and gastric cancer.

They analyzed the genes of 16 cancer patients and discovered nine-thousand 554 mutations, of which around 37-hundred appeared in all stomach cancer patients in Korea.

This means these 37-hundred are most likely genes that cause stomach cancer, which Koreans are particularly prone to.

The research is printed in the latest edition of Genome Research.

By analyzing the other 58-hundred gene mutations that appeared differently in different patients, the researchers are expected to discover the cancer traits of individual patients.