Studies Suggest Skin Cancer Can Be Inherited

In the first study, Dr. Shehnaz K. Hussain of UCLA and his colleagues examined the Swedish Family-Cancer Database looking for connections between siblings and offspring of those who were diagnosed with cancer. Those with a sibling or parent diagnosed with some types of skin cancer were more likely to develop skin cancers of various types.

In the second study, an Australian study run by Dr. Sri N. Shekar of the University of Queensland in Brisbane and his colleagues attempted to look at twin pairs in which at least one sibling had been diagnosed with skin cancer, also known as melanoma.

By searching the data through thousands of reported cases of melanoma in Queensland and New South Wales, they found 125 twin pairs, not all identical, however. In four of the 27 identical twins, both had melanom. At the same time three of the 98 fraternal twin pairs had both been diagnosed with skin cancer.

Statistically, this meant that fraternal, or non-identical twins had a roughly double chance of having skin cancer, if their twin it as well. meanwhile, identical twins faced a nearly 10-fold increase if their twin had the disease.

Of course, more study needs to be done. For example, it would be necessary to eliminate factors such as environment in the studies, as siblings and twins would be exposed, typically to the similar factors, including, perhaps, overexposure to sun.