Jul 03
Question by denise: What are my odd of getting cancer when on both sides of the family?
My fathers side of the family has all died of lung cancer, brain tumors, or another type of cancer. My dad is alive and healthy. My mom was recently diagnosed with lung cancer and a brain tumor.
Best answer:
Answer by ivy
cancer is not inherited. has nothing to do with wether or not your family has it.
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5 Responses to “What are my odd of getting cancer when on both sides of the family?”
July 3rd, 2011 at 3:40 am
I’m sorry about your mother.
And of course cancer has to do with genetics. But you certainly aren’t guaranteed to get it because of that. Neither lung nor brain cancer have strong genetic tendencies, such as breast or colon cancer.
July 3rd, 2011 at 4:20 am
sry abt ur mom. it is not inherited.
but try to lead ur lyf without cigarette ,edible oils…etc….exercise regularly..
July 3rd, 2011 at 5:16 am
Fewer than 10% of cancers are due to inherited factors.
Lung cancer is almost always caused by environmental factors – smoking, chemical exposure etc.
It is unlikely that you are genetically predisposed, but i recommend you don’t smoke.
July 3rd, 2011 at 5:27 am
Cancer is rarely hereditary – fewer than 10% of cancer cases, all types, are hereditary. Cancer diagnosed after the age of 50 is even less likely to be hereditary.
You don’t inherit a general tendency to get cancer, and there’s no general ‘cancer gene’.
Several family members having had different types of cancer isn’t hereditary.
A sign that cancer MAY be hereditary within a family is when several members of the same side of that family have had the SAME type of cancer, especially if some have developed it at a younger than usual age.
My own family history may reassure you. Two of my grandparents and both my parents had cancer. So did my mother’s nephew, sister and brother.
No members of my immediate or extended family have ever been considered at increased risk of any of the cancers they had. Of my parents six children, now aged from late 40s to early 60s, only I have developed cancer (at 50) and mine too was not hereditary and is unrelated to theirs.
July 3rd, 2011 at 5:47 am
There is some evidence on heredity on brain tumors. Anyway the numbers are too low to worry about.
I wish well for everyone in your family