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.'
