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Is cancer all hereditary?

Is cancer all hereditary?

All cancers are genetic, but less than 10% of all cancers are hereditary, that is, transmitted from parents to their children. Cancer is a disease that depends heavily on environmental factors and lifestyle habits, and is not really hereditary in the strict sense of the word. Heredity means you definitely get a familiar trait like eye color or a genetic disease. The cause of cancer is not so simple, because cancers do not originate from a single gene. The disease, in most cases, affects older people and most cancers occur when a number of genetic changes occur in the cells.

However, some people inherit modified genes, which increases their chances of developing a particular type of cancer. For example, women who have a mutation in the BRCA1 gene have about a 80% risk of developing breast and / or ovary cancer at some point in their lives, but attention, not all of them will develop the cancer. Only about 5% to 10% of cancers are caused by genetic mutations.

Cancers that can be caused by the inheritance of a familial genetic mutation and their respective genes include:

  • Breast cancer: BRAC1, BRAC2, PTEN, Intrauterine Cancer: APC, TP53, MLH1, MSH2
  • Thyroid Cancer: PTEN, APC, RET, STH11 / LKB1, MLH1, MLH1, MLH2, HER-2
  • Ovarian Cancer: BRAC1, BRAC2, BTAK / A
  • Prostate Cancer: TP53, PTEN, RBas, CDKN2, AR, CTNNB1, MSH2, PMS2
  • Gastric cancer: CDH1, APC, MMC (Esophageal Cancer)
  • Kidney cancer: FHIT. TRC8
  • Retinoblastoma: RB1
  • Melanoma: CDKN2A, CDK4.

Cancer formation process

Cancer is defined as a genomic disorder that arises due to changes in the DNA of normal cells that end up transforming in malignant cells. The cancer development process, carcinogenesis, has several stages and can involve up to hundreds of genes through genetic mutations, chromosomal breaks and losses, gene amplifications and instability, and also through epigenetic mechanisms (environmental factors and habits of life). Smoking, for example, is known to cause genetic modification that leads to an exponential increase in the risk of lung cancer.

Hereditary cancers are genetic problems that become more common in individuals in the same family. Can this occur by vertical transmission (from generation to generation), or by an inherited autosomal dominant pattern? 50% of the risk of transmission is passed on to the offspring at each gestation.

We call hereditary or germline mutations the mutations that individuals present in their genome and transmit to their offspring. Since the somatic mutations (which are the great majority) are not inherited, the individual does not present the mutation in its genome, since it presents the mutation only in the tumor cells.

Hereditary cancer has some recurrent characteristics: of a type of cancer in the same individual, several family members have the same neoplasia or related neoplasms, several generations have the same type of cancer.

Early detection and genetic counseling

Today it is possible to perform ultra precociousness of the propensity and likelihood of developing cancer, since a number of genes responsible for hereditary cancers have already been discovered and research does not stop at other genetic mutations.

If there is a case of hereditary cancer in the family, the most genetic research, which begins with the fundamental genetic counseling session.

If the If it is appropriate, it is possible to do specific tests that will track mutations in genes related to a particular type of cancer, such as BRAC1 - the gene responsible for breast and ovarian cancer.After the advent of NGS technology, a result of the incessant search being undertaken by cheaper genetic tests, it is possible to submit the DNA sample to a genetic panel that can sequence (almost) all cancer-related genes. In less than 24 hours the result is obtained and the cost is much lower.

Any genetic examination must always be preceded by genetic counseling with a geneticist or oncogeneticist doctor, since it is the professionals who have the capacity to help find out if the exam is really needed and what type to perform.


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