Probably more women than necessary. They find out that their mother or sister or aunt has been diagnosed with breast cancer and, in their minds, they are doomed as well. The risk is not passed genetically from parent to child. In this situation, a healthy woman with an affected sister or mother may have her risk increased one and a half to three times the known incidence rate. Not exactly a death sentence.
Heredity plays a role in other cancers as well.
According to David K. Goebel, M.D., these include colon cancer, Hodgkin's lymphoma, endometrial cancer, prostate cancer and several other types. By studying 'cancer-prone' families, certain genetic mutations have been found that are associated with the development of cancer. For example, Goebel says, only 6 percent of all colon cancer is secondary to an inherited syndrome. While your genes may have allowed you to escape, there are other risk factors over which you have little, if any, control. You can't change your age, gender or race, for example.