I'm Dr. Nathan Slotnick, a specialist in maternal-fetal medicine at Eastern Virginia Medical School.
Cancer is a genetic disease at two different levels.
There is a longer history, however, having to do with familial predisposition towards cancers. For reasons that we have not been able to fully understand until recently, certain families are more prone to certain forms of cancer. As we have been able to dissect the genetic framework and study the DNA that makes us unique individuals, much information has been gained regarding the genetics of cancer. Different cells in our body reproduce and divide at different rates. The inside lining of the intestinal tract divides rapidly, so do the blood-forming cells of the bone marrow.