Cancer in the Parents of Children with Cancer

Volume 333:1594-1599           December 14, 1995           Number 24

Cancer in the Parents of Children with Cancer

http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/abstract/333/24/1594

Jørgen H. Olsen, M.D., John D. Boice, Sc.D., Niels Seersholm, M.D.,
Andrea Bautz, and Joseph F. Fraumeni, M.D.

Background Certain types of cancer in children and young adults have
been linked with an increased risk of cancer in close relatives.
However, the relation between childhood cancer and familial risk
remains to be fully assessed in population-based studies.

Methods We conducted a nationwide study in Denmark of 11,380 parents of
children with cancer. The children were identified from records in the
Danish Cancer Registry; their parents were identified from population
registers. The occurrence and rate of cancer in the parents were
determined with use of the Cancer Registry's files and compared with
national incidence rates for various categories of tumor.

Results Overall, 1445 cancers were diagnosed in the parents, as
compared with 1496 expected from national incidence rates, to yield
standardized incidence ratios of 1.0 (95 percent confidence interval,
0.9 to 1.0) for all parents, 1.0 for mothers, and 0.9 for fathers. The
lower rate of cancer among fathers reflected their lower standardized
incidence ratio for lung cancer (0.8; 95 percent confidence interval,
0.6 to 0.9), as calculated from 114 observations.

Conclusions Genetic determinants are important in several types of
childhood cancer, but the genetic susceptibility to tumors does not
generally extend to the parents of children with cancer, nor do the
patterns of incidence point to the influence of shared environmental
factors. Thus, cancer in children should not be viewed as a general
marker for an increased risk of cancer in the patients' parents.

Source Information

From the Division for Cancer Epidemiology, Danish Cancer Society,
Copenhagen, Denmark (J.H.O., N.S., A.B.); and the Epidemiology and
Biostatistics Program, National Cancer Institute, Bethesda, Md.
(J.D.B., J.F.F.).

Address reprint requests to Dr. Olsen at the Danish Cancer Society,
Division for Cancer Epidemiology, Strandboulevarden 49, DK-2100
Copenhagen, Denmark.

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