Weekly Genetics Quiz #49: Cancer is Genetic
This week’s genetics quiz question is something that tends to trip up a lot of people:
If cancer is genetic, does that mean it’s inherited too?
Answer:
Although all cancer is caused by mutations in specific types of genes (oncogenes, tumor suppressor genes, and DNA repair genes), not all of these mutations are inherited. Only about 1-2% of cancers are hereditary and cluster in families with a strong shared susceptibility. Most people have sporadic cancer without a positive family history of the disease.
In the vast majority of cancer cases there is no apparent familial clustering. For most common cancers, an individual with a first-degree relative with the disease will have approximately twice the risk of the general population.
For more information, visit the Public Health Genetics Unit: Cancer Overview.
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I think it might be difficult for people to understand that you can inherit a genetic predisposition for cancer, but that it may require some environmental or other trigger for cancer to actually develop.
river2sea72: The multi-step process is difficult to explain when it’s easier to think of things as being black and white, on or off.
I’ve been told that the development of most cancers (like breast cancer) progresses through a series of stages during which the cell accumulates changes in the genetic code of that particular molecule.
So, mutations, as you mentioned occurred. But I do think that lifestyle, drugs taken, and environment in general, play a large role as well.
It’s sad how a few people I know have developed more serious cancers, cists, and so on while taking potent medications to get rid of another cancer.