Many cancer predisposition syndromes are rare or have incomplete penetrance, and traditional epidemiological tools are not well suited for their detection. Here we have used an approach that employs the entire population based data in the Finnish Cancer Registry (FCR) for analyzing familial aggregation of all types of cancer, in order to find evidence for previously unrecognized cancer suscepti...

As the authors describe, the initial evidence that pulmonary fibrosis may have a genetic basis emerged from case reports and case series that reported multiple cases of idiopathic interstitial pneumonias (IIPs) clustering in families [2–6]. The epidemiology indicates that within families containing two or more cases of IIP (familial interstitial pneumonia) the development of familial interstiti...

OBJECTIVE The urban environment and familial liability are risk factors for psychotic illness, but it is not known whether a biological synergism exists between these two proxy causes. METHOD The amount of biological synergism between familial liability (defined as a family history of delusions and/or hallucinations necessitating psychiatric treatment) and a five-level rating of population de...

OBJECTIVE Reliable, clinically useful data on familial risks have not been available for all types of cancer, and familial aggregations of cancers, which are not known to belong to an inherited cancer syndrome, are often overlooked by medical referral systems. We provide uniform data on familial risks in all common cancers. METHODS The nationwide Swedish Family-Cancer Database includes 11.5 m...

Objectives Gallstone disease (cholelithiasis) has a familial component, but detailed data on the modification of familial risk are lacking. Using nationwide hospital and population records, we aimed to determine detailed familial risks for medically diagnosed gallstone disease. Design Subjects were obtained from the Multigeneration Register, which contains family data on the Swedish populatio...

PURPOSE Familial clustering of longevity is well documented and includes both genetic and other familial factors, but the specific underlying mechanisms are largely unknown. We examined whether low incidence of specific cancers is a mechanism for familial clustering of longevity. METHODS The study population of individuals from longevity-enriched families consisted of 3267 offspring from 610 ...

Boston University and National Heart, Lung & Blood Institute’s Framingham Heart Study, Framingham, MA; Dept of Medicine (Cardiovascular Division), Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA; Section of Neurology, Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, MA; Section of Mathematics and Statistics, Boston University, Boston, MA; Center for Human Genetic Research,...

BACKGROUND Lower socioeconomic status is generally associated with an increased risk of end-stage renal disease (ESRD). The relationship between community characteristics reflecting socioeconomic status and familial aggregation of common forms of ESRD has not been studied. METHODS Demographic data and family history of ESRD were collected from 23,880 incident dialysis patients in ESRD Network...

The C allele of the rs2736100 single nucleotide polymorphism located in the second intron of the TERT gene has recently been identified as a susceptibility factor for myeloproliferative neoplasms (MPN) in the Icelandic population. Here, we evaluate the role of TERT rs2736100_C in sporadic and familial MPN in the context of the previously identified JAK2 GGCC predisposition haplotype. We have co...

absract gastric cancer is the fourth most common cancer and the second leading cause of cancer death. most cases are sporadic and only 10% of patients, show familial clustering. among these patients, 1 to 3 % have hereditary diffuse gastric cancer (hdgc), which is autosomal-dominant and present in younger ages. mutations in ecadherin gene cdh1 has been identified in 30 to 50% of patients. becau...