Lung Cancer Can Run in the Family

Having a close relative with the disease almost doubles the odds, study finds

By Serena Gordon
HealthDay Reporter

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THURSDAY, Oct. 12 (HealthDay News) -- While smoking is far and away the biggest risk factor for lung cancer, having a close relative who has been diagnosed with the disease nearly doubles your risk of developing the deadly disease.

A new study in the October issue of Chest found that people with a first-degree relative -- that means mother, father or sibling -- who had lung cancer had a 95 percent higher risk of developing the disease themselves.

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"Our long-term follow-up of a large-scale, population-based cohort identified a significant increase in the risk of lung cancer associated with a family history of lung cancer in a first-degree relative in a Japanese population," the study authors wrote.

Dr. Jay Brooks, chairman of hematology and oncology at the Ochsner Clinic Health System in Baton Rouge, La., said this study confirms what's already known about family history and the risk of lung cancer, and that "it's an important thing for physicians to realize."

"As a clinician, when I have someone with lung cancer, I ask the family members, 'Who smokes cigarettes?' Then I explain that they have a two- to three-fold higher risk of lung cancer because of their family history, and this is just another reason to quit smoking because they have a genetic susceptibility to the carcinogens in tobacco," explained Brooks.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that more than 180,000 new cases of lung cancer are diagnosed each year in the United States, and nearly 170,000 Americans die from the disease annually. It's the second leading cause of death for men and the third leading cause of death for women, according to the CDC. Cigarette smoking is the most common cause of the disease, according to the National Institutes of Health, though not everyone who gets lung cancer is a smoker or former smoker.

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