Albright et al. BMC Cancer 2012, 12:138 http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2407/12/138 R E S E A R C H A R T I C L E Open Access Significant evidence for a heritable contribution to cancer predisposition: a review of cancer familiality by site Frederick Albright1*, Craig Teerlink2, Theresa L Werner3 and Lisa A Cannon-Albright2,4 Abstract Background/Aims: Sound and rigorous well-established, and newly extended, methods for genetic epidemiological analysis were used to analyze population evidence for genetic contributions to risk for numerous common cancer sites in Utah. The Utah Population Database (UPDB) has provided important illumination of the familial contribution to cancer risk by cancer site. Methods: With over 15 years of new cancer data since the previous comprehensive familial cancer analysis, we tested for excess familial clustering using an expanded Genealogical Index of Familiality (dGIF) methodology that provides for a more informative, but conservative test for the existence of a genetic contribution to familial relatedness in cancer. Results: Some new cancer sites have been analyzed for the first time, having achieved sufficiently large sample size with additions to the UPDB. This new analysis has identified 6 cancer sites with significant evidence for a heritable contribution to risk, including lip, chronic lymphocytic leukemia, thyroid, lung, prostate, and melanoma. Conclusions: Both environmentally and genetically-based familial clustering have clinical significance, and these results support increased surveillance for cancer of the same sites among close relatives of affected individuals for many more cancers than are typically considered. Background The data for this study comes from a well known and scientifically recognized computerized resource in Utah, the Utah Population Database (UPDB) [1]. The UPDB was derived from the computerization of genealogical data for the Utah pioneers and their descendants. Ori- ginally it was used as a data resource to study the herit- ability of cancer risk [2-6]. Over the decades of its existence the UPDB has evolved to include general population data, as well as more recent genealogy cre- ated from Utah State Vital Records (such as mother, father, child triplets from birth certificates). The UPDB has been record linked to state death certificates as well as to diagnosis data from the largest Utah Hospitals and clinics. * Correspondence: frederick.albright@pharm.utah.edu 1Department of Pharmacotherapy, University of Utah College of Pharmacy, Salt Lake City, UT, USA Full list of author information is available at the end of the article The Utah Cancer Registry (UCR) was established in 1973 and is one of the earliest member state registries for the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) Program of the National Cancer Institute (NCI) [7-9]. The individual data in the UPDB continues to be linked annually to the statewide cancer diagnosis data of the UCR [10]. The UCR has recorded cancers in the state since 1966. The combination of genealogy data in the UPDB with individual cancer data in the UCR allows genetic epidemiological analysis of familial clustering of cancer by site. The most recent published report on familial cluster- ing of cancer by site in Utah was in 1994 [3]. This cur- rent study gives an update of evidence for familial clustering of cancer in Utah, and includes an enhanced analysis of familiality methodology that allows a more detailed examination of the heritable contribution to observed familial clustering. This current analysis of the latest UPDB linked data has provided larger sample sizes for all sites previously reported, and includes some © 2012 Albright et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.