Inheritance of pancreatic cancer in pancreatic cancer-prone families

Families are being increasingly recognized as carrying an inherited suscept ibility for pancreatic cancer, apparently unrelated to any currently recogn ized syndrome. The authors provide a review of the current evidence for fam ilial susceptibility to pancreatic cancer. A formal segregation analysis of the pattern of inheritance of pancreatic cancer in 70 families from the Na tional Registry for Familial Pancreatic Cancer is described. This analysis suggests a single major gene with an autosomal dominant mode of inheritance controlling susceptibility for pancreatic cancer in these families.