[Genetic epidemiology of hereditary tumor]

The last decade has seen many great successes in isolating genes involved in inherited disease, a process that is now scaled up by Human Genome Project. The identification of genes responsible for hereditary tumors has made it possible to do the genetic diagnosis of hereditary tumors. However, the benefits and limits of genetic testing for cancer susceptibility are different in each hereditary tumor. It is important to continue the analysis of significance(frequency and penetrance) of mutations of cancer predisposition genes and to make clear the genotype-phenotype and other correlation. Hereditary breast cancer and hereditary non-polyposis colorectal cancer are reviewed and the significance of genetic epidemiology of hereditary tumor is discussed.