Sibling risks in cancer: clues to recessive or X-linked genes?

TLDR

The study used the Swedish Family‑Cancer Database to systematically analyze cancer risks among offspring and siblings of cancer patients. For all 13 cancer sites examined, risks to both offspring and siblings of cases of cancer at the same site were significantly elevated; sibling risk was about twice that of offspring for prostate, testis, kidney, and bladder cancers, suggesting recessive or X‑linked susceptibility genes, and sibling risk was more than 20‑fold higher when a parent was also affected for colorectal, ovarian, prostate, renal cancers, and leukaemia, consistent with rare high‑risk alleles. © 2001 Cancer Research Campaign http://www.bjcancer.com.

Abstract

A systematic analysis of cancer risks to offspring and to siblings of cancer cases was carried out based on the nation-wide Swedish Family-Cancer Database. For all 13 cancer sites examined, risks to both offspring and siblings of cases of cancer at the same site were significantly elevated. The relative risk to siblings was approximately 2 fold more than the offspring risk for cancers of the prostate, testis, kidney and bladder, suggesting that recessive or X-linked susceptibility genes may be important for these cancers. Risks to siblings of cases where a parent was also affected were increased >20 fold over population rates for colorectal, ovarian, prostate and renal cancer, and for leukaemia, consistent with the effects of rare high-risk susceptibility alleles. © 2001 Cancer Research Campaign http://www.bjcancer.com