Advances in inherited cancers: Introduction

For decades, clinicians and researchers have recognized families with an apparent “excess of cancers” and struggled with how to best treat their cancers and prevent additional tumors in at-risk relatives. Painstaking work using candidate gene studies, linkage analysis, and positional cloning involving hundreds of families has led to the identification of literally dozens of g enes implicated in inherited cancer susceptibility. While some of these genes have been implicated in the pathogenesis of relatively rare, highly penetrant cancer syndromes (eg, Li-Fraumeni syndrome, hereditary breast ovarian cancer syndrome, Lynch syndrome, and familial adenomatous polyposis), othe rs appear to confer more moderate risk increases.

Source: Seminars in Oncology - September 21, 2016 Category: Cancer & Oncology Authors: Elena M. Stoffel, Kathleen A. Cooney Source Type: research