Is There a Hereditary Concern With Kidney Cancer?
More Programs and Publications Featuring Dr. Pavlos Msaouel
In this program:
Does kidney cancer have hereditary concerns? Watch as Dr. Pavlos Msaouel explains baseline kidney cancer risk, how much risk increases in relatives, and when it makes sense to have genetic evaluation for proactive screening.
Transcript
Broderick Rodell:
If a parent is diagnosed with kidney cancer, what risk do other family members face, and in general, is there a hereditary connection here with kidney cancer.
Dr. Pavlos Msaouel:
Kidney cancer can, in certain cases, be associated with hereditary syndromes.
If, for example, your parent or your sibling was diagnosed with kidney cancer at a very young age, let's say younger than 47 years old or 45 years old, then it's worth investigating and looking into the possibility that he or she may have a syndrome, and so what do you do in that case is you talk with your doctor and ask your doctor, the doctor that is taken care of that specific patient with kidney cancer to consider genetic testing or genetic evaluation for such syndromes. Now, if you do on average, apart from sub-syndromes, on average, if a family member has had kidney cancer, then your risk is mildly increased two-fold or three or fourfold, your baseline, your basic risk is very low to begin with...and so it's not increased substantially by the fact of your family member has had kidney cancer, unless that family member is found to have, as I mentioned a hereditary syndrome. In that case, you will also need to be tested to see if you have such a syndrome, in which case you may need regular screening for kidney cancer or other diseases that may be associated with that symptom.
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