A family history of Barrett's oesophagus: another risk factor?
Barrett's oesophagus and oesophageal adenocarcinoma, although increasingly common, have no known genetic cause. In this report we describe a family with a remarkable history of Barrett's oesophagus and adenocarcinoma. The index case is a 76-year-old man with adenocarcinoma arising within Barrett's oesophagus. Two of his three brothers, aged 68 and 78 years, also developed adenocarcinoma arising in Barrett's oesophagus and the remaining 67-year-old brother has severe dysplasia in biopsies from Barrett's oesophagus. The sons and daughters of the index case requested screening and all had histologically confirmed short-segment Barrett's oesophagus. This kindred appears to be genetically susceptible to Barrett's oesophagus and oesophageal adenocarcinoma. Pooling of data from this and other Barrett's families may allow successful linkage analysis.
Groves
Chris
C
Department of Gastroenterology, Hillingdon Hospital, Middlesex, and Department of Clinical Pharmacology, University of Oxford, UK. cjgroves@lineone.net
Jankowski
Janusz
J
Barker
Fred
F
Holdstock
Greg
G
D000230:Adenocarcinoma / Q000235:genetics / Q000473:pathology; D000368:Aged; D001471:Barrett Esophagus / Q000235:genetics*; D001706:Biopsy; D004938:Esophageal Neoplasms / Q000235:genetics / Q000473:pathology; D008040:Genetic Linkage; D020022:Genetic Predisposition to Disease; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D010375:Pedigree; D012307:Risk Factors; D035781:Siblings