Reply #172: Lung cancer, however, is due [View All]

[smirkymonkey]

more to environmental factors than heredity...

http://www.worldbank.org/html/extdr/hnp/hddflash/issues/00059.html

>>> NCI TWINS STUDY: HEREDITY PLAYS A MINOR ROLE IN MOST LUNG CANCER <<<

In the largest study of twins, on the role of heredity in the development of lung cancer, researchers from the National Cancer Institute (NCI) have found that heredity plays a role in no more than a small fraction of lung cancer cases. (Results of the study published in the August 13, 1994 issue of the Lancet)

For the purposes of lung cancer prevention, "The message is that smoking-induced lung cancers in men greater than 50 years of age should be attributed to smoking cigarettes -- not to the genes they inherit from their parents," said M. Miles Braun, M.D., a senior research investigator in NCI's Division of Cancer Etiology and the study's principal investigator. "It could be a fatal mistake for a smoker to believe that he will not develop lung cancer just because he has close relatives who smoked for a long time and did not develop lung cancer."

Of course, this study refers to smokers, but it also shows that the connection between genetics and LUNG cancer is very weak.