Reports of familial clustering of hematologic malignancies have appeared for decades, but the cause of this uncommon observation is still unknown. Most modern investigations support a genetic rather than an environmental explanation. Clinically, most pedigrees of families with familial hematologic malignancies demonstrate age of onset anticipation (ie, diagnosis at an earlier age in successive ...

BACKGROUND To clarify genetic factors involved in the susceptibility to lung cancer, it is essential to identify families with lung cancer clustering and to characterize the mode of clustering. Since somatic mutations of the p53, RB and p16 genes occur frequently in lung cancer and the replication error phenotype is seen in a subset of lung cancer, it is possible that germ-line mutations of the...

BACKGROUND We aimed to study the prevalence of overweight and obesity and to assess its familial clustering among schoolchildren in northern China. METHODS A cross-sectional study was conducted on 95,292 schoolchildren in northern China to investigate the prevalence of overweight and obesity. A group of overweight and obese children (n = 450) was selected using a cluster sampling method. Answ...

In order to evaluate the familial clustering of hepatitis B virus(HBV) and hepatitis C virus(HCV) infections and to elucidate the possible routes of HCV transmission among Korean adults with chronic liver disease, 137 household contacts of 51 chronic carriers of HBsAg and 111 household contacts of 38 controls, and 181 household contacts of 96 anti-HCV positives and 102 household contacts of 76 ...

This comprehensive cross-sectional study aimed to identify factors contributing to familial aggregation of gastric cancer (GC). A total of 1058 GC patients and 1268 controls were analyzed separately according to the presence or absence of a first-degree relative of GC (GC-relative). Logistic regression analysis adjusted for age, gender, residence during childhood, smoking, alcohol intake, month...