Familial nasopharyngeal carcinoma.
Nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) has a striking geographical and ethnical distribution. It occurs with high frequency in southern China and Southeast Asia. Family clustering was also observed in NPC and a typical family with 15 NPC cases was introduced in this paper. Epidemiological and genetic studies have been carried out in the previous decades and vast information was accumulated for familiar NPC, in terms of risk factors, inheritance mode, and involvement of gene polymorphisms. The major findings in this field were summarized. Furthermore, future directions leading to understanding the genetic mechanism of the familial form of NPC was also discussed.
Zeng
Yi-Xin
YX
Cancer Center, Sun Yat-sen University, 651 DongFeng Road East, Guangzhou 510060, China. yxzeng@gzsums.edu
Jia
Wei-Hua
WH
D005190:Family; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009303:Nasopharyngeal Neoplasms / Q000235:genetics*