Skip to main content
PMC home page
British Journal of Cancer logoLink to British Journal of Cancer
. 2001 Feb;84(3):429–434. doi: 10.1054/bjoc.2000.1612

Genetic epidemiology of glioma

B Malmer 1, L Iselius 2, E Holmberg 3, A Collins 4, R Henriksson 1, H Grönberg 1
PMCID: PMC2363745  PMID: 11161412

Abstract

The present study performed a segregation analysis of a cohort of first-degree relatives (FDR) of glioma patients. The families with two or more gliomas were also expanded to determine if any more gliomas could be detected, and if any other types of cancers were associated. These glioma-prone families (n = 24/432) were extended to include first-, second- and third-degree relatives (n = 807) and a cohort was assembled, the standardized incidence risk for other types of cancer calculated and the pedigrees investigated for a possible mode of inheritance. A segregation analysis of the 2141 FDR in 297 families, performed using the Pointer software, did not clearly reject a multifactorial model χ2 (3) = 6.13,P< 0.2. However, when letting all parameters be free, the recessive model provided the best fit. In the extended families, no increased risk of other types of cancer was found. This population-based study proposes that familial glioma occurs in about 5% of all glioma cases and that 1% have a possible autosomal dominant inheritance. This first segregation analysis performed in familial glioma must be cautiously interpreted, but an autosomal recessive gene provided the best fit, which could possibly explain 2% of all glioma cases. © 2001 Cancer Research Campaign http://www.bjcancer.com

Keywords: familial, glioma, astrocytoma, segregation analyses, hereditary, autosomal recessive

Full Text

The Full Text of this article is available as a PDF (195.7 KB).

Selected References

These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.

  1. Birch J. M., Hartley A. L., Tricker K. J., Prosser J., Condie A., Kelsey A. M., Harris M., Jones P. H., Binchy A., Crowther D. Prevalence and diversity of constitutional mutations in the p53 gene among 21 Li-Fraumeni families. Cancer Res. 1994 Mar 1;54(5):1298–1304. [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  2. Bondy M. L., Lustbader E. D., Buffler P. A., Schull W. J., Hardy R. J., Strong L. C. Genetic epidemiology of childhood brain tumors. Genet Epidemiol. 1991;8(4):253–267. doi: 10.1002/gepi.1370080406. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  3. Borecki I. B., Province M. A., Rao D. C. Power of segregation analysis for detection of major gene effects on quantitative traits. Genet Epidemiol. 1994;11(5):409–418. doi: 10.1002/gepi.1370110503. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  4. Grossman S. A., Osman M., Hruban R., Piantadosi S. Central nervous system cancers in first-degree relatives and spouses. Cancer Invest. 1999;17(5):299–308. doi: 10.3109/07357909909032870. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  5. Grönberg H., Damber L., Damber J. E., Iselius L. Segregation analysis of prostate cancer in Sweden: support for dominant inheritance. Am J Epidemiol. 1997 Oct 1;146(7):552–557. doi: 10.1093/oxfordjournals.aje.a009313. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  6. Heimdal K., Olsson H., Tretli S., Fosså S. D., Børresen A. L., Bishop D. T. A segregation analysis of testicular cancer based on Norwegian and Swedish families. Br J Cancer. 1997;75(7):1084–1087. doi: 10.1038/bjc.1997.185. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  7. Houlston R. S., Collins A., Kee F., Collins B. J., Shields D. C., Morton N. E. Segregation analysis of colorectal cancer in Northern Ireland. Hum Hered. 1995 Jan-Feb;45(1):41–48. doi: 10.1159/000154253. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  8. Iselius L., Lambert B., Lindsten J., Tippett P., Gavin J., Daniels G., Yates A., Ritzén M., Sandstedt B. Unusual XX/XY chimerism. Ann Hum Genet. 1979 Oct;43(2):89–96. doi: 10.1111/j.1469-1809.1979.tb02000.x. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  9. Iselius L., Slack J., Littler M., Morton N. E. Genetic epidemiology of breast cancer in Britain. Ann Hum Genet. 1991 May;55(Pt 2):151–159. doi: 10.1111/j.1469-1809.1991.tb00408.x. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  10. Karlsson P., Holmberg E., Lundell M., Mattsson A., Holm L. E., Wallgren A. Intracranial tumors after exposure to ionizing radiation during infancy: a pooled analysis of two Swedish cohorts of 28,008 infants with skin hemangioma. Radiat Res. 1998 Sep;150(3):357–364. [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  11. Louis D. N., von Deimling A. Hereditary tumor syndromes of the nervous system: overview and rare syndromes. Brain Pathol. 1995 Apr;5(2):145–151. doi: 10.1111/j.1750-3639.1995.tb00588.x. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  12. Malmer B., Grönberg H., Bergenheim A. T., Lenner P., Henriksson R. Familial aggregation of astrocytoma in northern Sweden: an epidemiological cohort study. Int J Cancer. 1999 May 5;81(3):366–370. doi: 10.1002/(sici)1097-0215(19990505)81:3<366::aid-ijc9>3.0.co;2-0. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  13. Prichard P. J., Tjandra J. J. Colorectal cancer. Med J Aust. 1998 Nov 2;169(9):493–498. [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  14. Rapley E. A., Crockford G. P., Teare D., Biggs P., Seal S., Barfoot R., Edwards S., Hamoudi R., Heimdal K., Fossâ S. D. Localization to Xq27 of a susceptibility gene for testicular germ-cell tumours. Nat Genet. 2000 Feb;24(2):197–200. doi: 10.1038/72877. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  15. Rosenthal T. C., Puck S. M. Screening for genetic risk of breast cancer. Am Fam Physician. 1999 Jan 1;59(1):99-104, 106. [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  16. Vieregge P., Gerhard L., Nahser H. C. Familial glioma: occurrence within the "familial cancer syndrome" and systemic malformations. J Neurol. 1987 May;234(4):220–232. doi: 10.1007/BF00618254. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  17. Wooster R., Neuhausen S. L., Mangion J., Quirk Y., Ford D., Collins N., Nguyen K., Seal S., Tran T., Averill D. Localization of a breast cancer susceptibility gene, BRCA2, to chromosome 13q12-13. Science. 1994 Sep 30;265(5181):2088–2090. doi: 10.1126/science.8091231. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  18. Wrensch M., Lee M., Miike R., Newman B., Barger G., Davis R., Wiencke J., Neuhaus J. Familial and personal medical history of cancer and nervous system conditions among adults with glioma and controls. Am J Epidemiol. 1997 Apr 1;145(7):581–593. doi: 10.1093/oxfordjournals.aje.a009154. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]

Articles from British Journal of Cancer are provided here courtesy of Cancer Research UK

RESOURCES