Familial Risk and Heritability of Cancer among Twins in Nordic Countries

In this population-based research, researchers analysed the aggregated cancer data of Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden for familial risk of different cancer in whole twin cohort as well as monozygotic and dizygotic twins. They found that there is a significant risk of developing cancer in individuals with one affected monozygotic or dizygotic twin and monozygotic twins have more 9% more risk than monozygotic twins.

Furthermore, it was evident from the article that cancer of prostate, breast, lung, skin, and colon has highest familial risk among all 23 cancer included in this article. Environmental factors like socioeconomic status, lifestyle, and occupation have a significant association with lung, breast and testicular cancers.

This familial risk of different cancer might be helpful in community-based health education and genetic counselling of individuals having one or more cancer effected first degree and second-degree family members.

Original article: Mucci L.A. et al (2016) Familial Risk and Heritability of Cancer Among Twins in Nordic Countries. JAMA. 2016;315(1):68–76. doi:10.1001/jama.2015.17703