Nevertheless, as most of the patients were treated by RT (162) (Table 1), including 49 of the 56 matched BC patients (Supplementary Table 1), we compared RT-treated patients with matched untreated healthy donors, even though this analysis would not allow us to discriminate between the potential effects of RT and of the cancer itself, and confirmed that both CDA activity and mRNA levels were significantly higher in patients treated by RT than in untreated controls (Fig. 2a,b). The gene discussed is CDA; the disease is cancer.