Family history of cancer and risk of esophageal and gastric cancers in the United States

Abstract

The worldwide rates for histology-and subsite-specific types of esophageal and gastric cancer reveal strikingly divergent patterns. The contribution of environmental and genetic factors has been explored in several high-incidence areas, but data on genetic influences are scarce for Western countries. Using data from a multicenter, population-based, case-control study on 1,143 cases and 695 controls in the United States, we evaluated whether a family history of digestive or other cancers was associated with an increased risk of esophageal adenocarcinoma (n ‫؍‬ 293), esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (n ‫؍‬ 221), gastric cardia adenocarcinoma (n ‫؍‬ 261) or non-cardia gastric adenocarcinoma (n ‫؍‬ 368). After adjusting for other risk factors, individuals reporting a family history of digestive cancers experienced no increased risk of either type of esophageal cancer but they were prone to adenocarcinomas of the gastric cardia [odds ratio (OR) ‫؍‬ 1.34, 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.91-1.97] and non-cardia segments (OR ‫,64.1؍‬ 95% CI 1.03-2.08). This familial tendency, particularly for non-cardia gastric tumors, was largely explained by an association with family history of stomach cancer (OR ‫؍‬ 2.52, 95% CI 1.50 -4.23). In addition, family history of breast cancer was associated with increased risks of esophageal adenocarcinoma (OR ‫؍‬ 1.74, 95% CI 1.07-2.83) and non-cardia gastric adenocarcinoma (OR ‫؍‬ 1.76, 95% CI 1.09 -2.82). Also seen were non-significant familial associations of esophageal squamous-cell cancer with prostate cancer as well as non-cardia gastric cancer with leukemia and brain tumors, though these relationships must be interpreted with caution. Our data point to the role of familial susceptibility to gastric cancer, but not to any form of esophageal cancer, in the United States. © 2001 Wiley-Liss, Inc. Key words: esophageal neoplasm; stomach neoplasm; case-control study; family history; United StatesIncidence rates for adenocarcinomas of the esophagus and gastric cardia have risen steeply in industrialized countries since the 1970s, while rates for esophageal squamous cell carcinoma and non-cardia gastric adenocarcinoma have remained stable or decreased. 1,2 Both the rapidity of these changes and the striking geographic variation of these tumors suggest that environmental factors play a major etiologic role. 3-9 However, genetic or other endogenous factors may also influence susceptibility to these tumors. Numerous studies from populations in China, Iran, Italy, Japan and Poland have reported familial aggregation of esophageal and gastric cancers. 10 -17 In Western countries, very few epidemiologic studies have evaluated the familial risk of type-specific esophageal cancer or subsite-specific gastric cancer. 18 -20 We conducted this analysis to determine whether a family history of digestive or other cancers is associated with an increased risk of esophageal adenocarcinoma, esophageal squamous cell carcinoma, gastric cardia adenocarcinoma or non-cardia gastric adenocarcinoma. Data were co...

Familial risk for gastric carcinoma: an updated study from Sweden

“…H. pylori infection is an established cause of gastric lymphomas of mucosa-associated lymphoid tissue (Wotherspoon et al, 1991;Parsonnet et al, 1994), but we had no details of the non-Hodgkin's lymphoma subtypes. The association of corpus cancer with breast cancer was in line with a US case -control study (Dhillon et al, 2001). Second corpus cancer has been observed to be in excess after primary sporadic and familial breast cancers (Ji and Hemminki, 2006); BRCA1, BRCA2, and E-cadherin gene may be shared genetic risk factors for the two cancer sites.…”

“…However, according to the authors, the result could be overestimated by reporting bias (Lagergren et al, 2000). A nonsignificant excess of cardia cancer was also noted in an US study among individuals reporting a family history of digestive tract cancers (Dhillon et al, 2001). In the present study, we observed a strong familial association between oesophageal adenocarcinoma and cardia cancer, giving an SIR of 5.67.…”

Family history of malignancies and risk of breast cancer: prospective data from the Shanghai women’s health study

“…Two previous case-control studies have reported that family history of esophageal cancer is associated with the risk of breast cancer [10,13], and one of the studies found that the risk was mainly seen in early onset breast cancers, which is consistent with our finding [10]. Although, no studies have reported that family history of lung cancer is associated with early onset breast cancer, two case-control studies found that non-smoking lung cancer was associated with a family history of breast cancer [25,39].…”

A Population-based Case-control Study on Risk Factors for Gastric Cardia Cancer in Rural Areas of Linzhou

“…What's more, genetic factor may also be one of main factors influencing gastric cardia cancer in this study. The correlation between the cardia gastric cancer and family history of tumor suggested that genetic predisposition and common dietary habits might contribute to the cardia carcinogenesis (Dhillon et al, 2001;Wen et al, 2010). The migration epidemiology had demonstrated that the incidences for esophageal cancer in the offspring of immigrants who migrated to Shanxi province 108 years ago were the same as native counterparts in Linzhou (Wang et al, 2005).…”