Abstract: A screening method for identifying an individual having a pre-disposition towards having a cancer is disclosed, which screening method comprises the steps of: (a) obtaining a test sample comprising a nucleotide sequence comprised in a gene in a base excision repair (BER) pathway of the individual or an amino acid sequence of a polypeptide expressed thereby; and (b) comparing a region of the test sample sequence with the corresponding region of the wild type sequence, whereby a difference between the test sample sequence and the wild type sequence signifies that the individual is pre-disposed to having the cancer; and wherein the difference comprises a specified variation. The specified variation can be the known mutation in the human MYH protein, G382D-hMYH or a nucleotide sequence encoding it, or it can be one or more novel variations, namely, Y165C, E466X, and Y90X, or the respective corresponding nucleotide sequences.