Heritability of cancers in Japanese population: Estimation from recent cohort data

• Published in: Clinical Genetics Vol. 106; no. 2; pp. 204 - 208
• Main Authors: Nagao, Yoshiro, Takeshita, Kei
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Oxford, UK Wiley 01.08.2024; Blackwell Publishing Ltd
• Subjects: Cancer; ethnicity; Gastric cancer; Genetic counseling; Genetic factors; Heritability; liability threshold model; Lung cancer; Polygenic inheritance; Population genetics; Population studies; Uterine cancer; cancer; ethnicity; liability threshold model; heritability
• ISSN: 0009-9163; 1399-0004; 1399-0004
• DOI: 10.1111/cge.14535

Cancers are genetically categorized into common diseases showing a so‐called multifactorial inheritance except for rare familial cancers. And as a measure to estimate the strength of genetic factors in the multifactorial diseases, heritability (h2) is generally used. However, there have been few reports on the estimation of heritability for cancers. We calculated the heritability from the incidence in subject population and the familial recurrence rate in first‐degree relatives of the affected for cancers quoting the data from a large‐scale prospective cohort study by Hidaka et al. published in 2020. This is the first report for heritability of any cancers in Japanese population. The results showed that heritability of overall cancers in Japanese population is 0.064, which is much lower than Nordic population reported by Mucci et al. that was 0.33. For individual cancers, stomach cancer (h2 = 0.14), colorectum cancer (0.006), lung cancer (0.08) and uterine cancer (0.16) accounted for half of the total patients, and each heritability tends to be lower than previously reported for the European descent. The results of this study suggest that heritability of cancers varies greatly by ethnicity. And these results should be important in terms of cancer genetics and in the genetic counseling for cancers. Incidence of cancer in Japan has been increasing rapidly in recent years. Cancers are genetically categorized into the multifactorial diseases, and as a measure to estimate the strength of genetic factors in multifactorial diseases, heritability is used. We calculated heritability of various cancers in Japan using the liability threshold model.