Updating Family History May Improve Cancer Screenings

A study published Wednesday in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that doctors may be able to identify patients who would benefit from aggressive cancer screening by frequently updating their family cancer history.

According to Sharon Plon, M.D., director of the Baylor College of Medicine Cancer Genetics Clinic, “Taking a good family history at age 30 will identify a number of high-risk people,” Plon says. “But clearly once is not enough. We found that if we continued to take histories every few years for the next 20 years we would identify even more people at risk.”

The researchers examined baseline and follow-up history, family histories of colon, breast and prostate cancer from 11,000 participants who are a part of the Cancer Genetics Network (CGN), a U.S. population-based cancer registry.

By following participants between 1999 and 2009, researchers discovered that new cancer diagnoses within families were more likely to affect the frequency of doctor recommended assessments and screenings of patients between the ages of 30 and 50. Researchers also concluded that there is a 5 percent chance that “people in this age group would be newly identified as candidates for early colorectal cancer screening and a 4 percent chance that women in their 30s and 40s would be newly identified as candidates for aggressive breast cancer screening.”

The Massachusetts General Hospital researchers found that based on their family history of colon cancer, at age 30, two percent of participants met criteria for early colonoscopy and this figure rose to 7 percent by the time the participant turned 50. Based on family history and other factors, by the age of 30, breast cancer MRIs were recommended for 7 percent of women who were involved in the study, by the age of 50, more than 11 percent of the women qualified to receive an MRI.

According to researchers, “Family histories change significantly between the ages of 30 and 50 years, we therefore recommend that family history should be updated at least every five to ten years to appropriately inform recommendations for cancer screening.”