• Question: Say, if someone's dad had cancer, would that mean that the child is more susceptible to having cancer than another child whose family has no record of having cancer?

    Asked by griffmeg11 to Susanne, Robert, Clare, Mariana, Pedro on 12 Nov 2012. This question was also asked by kfcisnice, jesssica14.
    • Photo: Clare Taylor

      Clare Taylor answered on 12 Nov 2012:

      I can give you a bit of personal perspective on this one… My father was diagnosed with a form of cancer around 20 years ago – he had Non-Hodgkins lymphoma and made a full recovery following treatment which was both chemotherapy and radiotherapy, and today he is still going strong. As far as I am aware, I am not not at any increased risk of the same form of cancer, but this is because of the type of cancer involved. There are certain other types of cancer which do have some family associations because it is linked to a mutated gene which can be inherited by offspring (children), but this is only in around 5 – 10% of cancers. Also, we only share 50% of one parent’s genes so it is not always easy to predict.

    • Photo: Susanne Muekusch

      Susanne Muekusch answered on 12 Nov 2012:

      Hi griffmeg11,

      only very few cancers are caused by inherited gene mutations. I know there is a type of breast cancer and one of colon cancer where this is the case.

      Therefore the answer would be: probably not.

      Of course if you look outside the genes in transferrable habits that run in a family, things are different. If the children start smoking (like their parents) and prefer their barbecue meat coal-like (like their parents), they have a higher risk of developing cancer than children who do not smoke and don’t eat burned fat.

      Overall: Environmental factors have much more influence on your cancer risk than genes.

    • Photo: Robert Insall

      Robert Insall answered on 13 Nov 2012:

      Clare and Susanne are spot on.

      Of course, you can’t tell whether your genes are OK or not (we may one day be able to sequence peoples’ genomes and tell, but we’re currently nowhere near clever enough). So if either of your parents have cancer they will most likely check you regularly to make sure. Still doesn’t mean it’s likely, but better to check, right?

      My mother-in-law had breast cancer, so they screen my wife every year. No problems so far. Thankfully.

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