Albright et al. BMC Cancer 2012, 12:138 http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2407/12/138 individuals with cancer are at increased risk for cancer of that same site. This is true for cancers of many differ- ent sites, and this should be considered when making decisions on cancer screening or recommendations for lifestyle changes. The implications for those cancers with evidence for both close and distant excess relatedness are also clear. There must exist genes or gene variants that are respon- sible for the clustering observed in the Utah population. Multiple cancer predisposition genes have already been identified in high-risk Utah pedigrees identified in the UPDB, including BRCA1, BRCA2, and p16/CDKN2A [17-19]. The newly reported cancers of most interest for a genetic contribution to predisposition (lip cancer, non-Hodgkin lymphoma and multiple myeloma) should be the focus of high-risk pedigree studies to identify the hypothesized predisposition genes for which we present evidence. Such studies have begun in Utah, and our findings may have implications for cancer screening and risk assessment. Acknowledgements Data collection for this publication was supported by National Library of Medicine grant LM009331 (to LACA). The project was supported by Award Number P30CA042014 from the National Cancer Institute. Research was supported by the Utah Cancer Registry, which is funded by Contract No. HHSN261201000026C from the National Cancer Institute’s SEER Program with additional support from the Utah State Department of Health and the University of Utah. Partial support for all data sets with in the Utah Population Database (UPDB) was provided by Huntsman Cancer Institute, University of Utah and the Huntsman Cancer Institute’s Cancer Center Support grant, P30 CA42014 from National Cancer Institute. Author details 1Department of Pharmacotherapy, University of Utah College of Pharmacy, Salt Lake City, UT, USA. 2Genetic Epidemiology, Department of Medicine, University of Utah School of Medicine, Salt Lake City, UT, USA. 3Oncology, Department of Medicine, University of Utah School of Medicine, Salt Lake City, UT, USA. 4George E. Wahlen Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center, Salt Lake City, UT, USA. Authors’ contributions FA performed all analyses and produced the primary manuscript. CT and TLW participated in discussions of appropriate groups for analysis. LACA conceived of the study and provided oversight. All authors contributed to, read, and approved the final manuscript. Competing interests The authors declare that they have no competing interests. Received: 27 January 2012 Accepted: 3 April 2012 Published: 3 April 2012 References 1. Skolnick MH: The Utah genealogical database: a resource for genetic epidemiology. 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