Brain Tumor – Genetics

Transcript

One of the questions that we do get asked on a fairly regular basis is, is there a relationship or can my son or daughter get this type of brain cancer if I have it, can another family, can it be passed on from one family member to another? There are some very, very uncommon genetic syndromes in which various types of tumors, not just brain tumors, can be passed on to an individual’s children, but more likely than not, more common than not there isn’t any direct relationship between a particular glioblastoma or another type of bleeding glioma or for the most part, other types of brain tumors and being passed on to their progeny, but more likely than not there’s multiple, a myriad of factors that play into an individual coming down with this particularly difficult to treat a brain tumor and they can be internally, you know, genetic, that could be an exposure to particular toxin. But again, ultimately we don’t know the etiology of these malignant brain tumors, but the genetic prediction is very, very small. And again can only be seen, it’s typically only seen in a very small subset of patients with well-known genetic disorders.