Familial association of histology specific breast cancers with cancers at other sites

Breast cancer histologies show important differences in their incidence pattern, method of detection and management. Aggregation of breast cancer occurs also in families diagnosed for cancer at sites different from the breast. Therefore, the familial association of histology specific breast cancers with cancers at other sites is of great interest. The nationwide Swedish Family‐Cancer Database was used to calculate standardised incidence ratios (SIRs) for breast cancer when parents or sibling were diagnosed with cancer at the most common sites. Significant SIRs were found when parents had breast, ovarian, laryngeal, endometrial, prostate, lung and colon cancers. If women were diagnosed before the age of 50 years, the SIRs were significant when parents were diagnosed with breast, ovarian, and prostate cancers, and leukaemia, and when siblings were diagnosed with squamous cell skin, pancreatic, breast and endometrial cancers. If mothers were diagnosed with breast cancer, histology‐specific SIRs were ranked as comedo > tubular > ductal > lobular; SIR for medullary carcinoma was not significant but it was high when mothers presented with ovarian cancer. Other associations were between the upper aerodigestive tract and lobular, colon and comedo, larynx and ductal cancer. Moreover, cervical cancer was associated with comedo and endometrial cancer with the medullary histology. In conclusion, histology‐specific breast cancers were associated with specific cancer sites and the strength of the association varied among histologies. © 2004 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.