Pancreatic Cancer’s Family Ties
Reported January 18, 2010
(Ivanhoe Newswire) — If you have a family member under 50 who was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, you may have a greater risk of developing it yourself.
Pancreatic cancer is one of the deadliest forms of cancer, claiming the lives of more than 34,000 Americans each year. Now researchers say if you want to know your risk, just talk to your relatives.
Researchers recently revealed those with a family member diagnosed with pancreatic cancer are twice as likely as the general population to develop the disease themselves. If that person developed the disease when they were younger than age 50, the relative’s risk jumps to nine times greater than the general population’s risk. Someone with multiple family members with pancreatic cancer is six times more likely to develop that cancer.
“These data should help to further inform risk assessment and subsequent early detection screening of individuals at high risk of developing pancreatic cancer,” study authors wrote.
Source: Journal of the National Cancer Institute, January 2010