The tendency to form malignant tumors may be inherited. There are certain mutations in genes that are passed on from generation to generation, increasing the chance of getting cancer; the most common of these are BRCA1 and BRCA2. Oncologist Pavel Koposov, MD, deputy director of the European Medical Center (EMC) Institute of Oncology, told socialbites.ca.
It can cause the development of breast and ovarian cancer in women and prostate cancer in men.
According to the doctor, one of the problems in the treatment of cancer patients is the late detection of tumors. A feature of malignant neoplasms is that they begin to develop asymptomatically. Once the patient begins to feel better, the tumor is usually in the late stages and metastasizes. This type of cancer is much more difficult to deal with and the prognosis is often unfavorable.
“Therefore, if your close relatives have had cancer, it would be useful to have genetic testing to determine whether you have a hereditary predisposition to a similar type of cancer. If there is such a predisposition, this is not a cause for panic. On the contrary, we should be happy to learn that,” said the doctor.
The oncologist noted that it is impossible to protect yourself from cancer 100%, because we will never know exactly what and at what moment will provoke the development of a malignant tumor. Even if you have an inherited genetic mutation, this does not necessarily guarantee that you will develop a tumor.
“Sometimes it can happen a generation later, or even a few generations later. For example, a grandmother, daughter, and granddaughter had BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutations. However, only the grandmother and granddaughter developed breast cancer, while the daughter did not.”
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