Histologic types of lung carcinoma and related family history of anatomic sites and histologic types of cancers

BACKGROUND, Familial factors are suggested to play roles in lung carcinogen esis, but may well be different for each histologic cell type. METHODS. Information regarding smoking, past medical history, and family hi story of malignant diseases among first-degree relatives was collected from a total of 1188 patients with primary lung carcinoma (participants) who we re treated in the thoracic oncology ward at the National Cancer Center Hosp ital, Tokyo, Japan. These data were analyzed for associations with the hist ologic type of the lung carcinoma. The main outcome measures were the relat ive risk of developing a malignancy, at any site or at certain specific sit es, in first-degree relatives of participants who had a specific histologic type of lung carcinoma compared with the relative risk in those first-degr ee relatives of participants with other cell types. RESULTS. Participants with multiple malignant lesions reported significantl y more first-degree relatives with a malignancy than those without multiple tumors (P = 0.008 by the Wilcoxon rank sum test). There was no statistical ly significant correlation between age, gender, smoking history, or histolo gic tumor type in the participant and the overall family history of maligna ncy. Site specific analyses revealed that participants with adenocarcinoma reported a family history of colorectal carcinoma, and those with squamous cell carcinoma reported a family history of head and neck carcinoma, more f requently than other participants (P = 0.041 and 0.001, respectively, by ch i-square analysis). CONCLUSIONS. The data from the current study suggest an association between familiar factors and histologic type of lung carcinoma. Genetic factors to determine individual susceptibility to lung carcinogenesis should be inves tigated according to each histologic type. Cancer 1999;88:1182-8. (C) 1999 American Cancer Society.