Cancer survival chance linked to parents
November 05, 2007
Cancer patients are more likely to beat the disease if their parents also beat that type of cancer, new research reveals.
The research, published in the November issue of Lancet Oncology, found that both genetic and environmental factors are likely to play a role.
The Swedish research team used a database of more than 3 million families and found the findings applied to breast, lung, prostate and colorectal cancers.
Surviving cancer was defined as living for at least ten years past the cancer diagnosis and it was found that children with the same cancer as a parent who died within ten years of diagnosis were much more likely to suffer the same fate.
For those who parents died with ten years of diagnosis, the risk of dying from the same disease was 75 per cent higher for breast cancer, 107 per cent for prostate cancer, 44 per cent for colorectal cancer and 39 per cent for lung cancer.
Josephine Querido, Cancer Research UK’s senior science information officer, said: ‘Studies like these can help to shed light on cancers which may run in families.
‘Cancers are a product of nature and nurture our genes, lifestyle and environment which is why studying families with cancer is important to discover causes and risk factors for the disease. And this study shows that it may also have implications for survival.’