Individual having a parent with early-onset gastric cancer may need screening at younger age

To evaluate whether individuals with gastric cancer (GC) are diagnosed earlier if they have first-degree relatives with GC.

A total of 4282 patients diagnosed with GC at National Cancer Center Hospital from 2002 to 2012 were enrolled in this retrospective study. We classified the patients according to presence or absence of first-degree family history of GC and compared age at diagnosis and clinicopathologic characteristics. In addition, we further classified patients according to specific family member with GC (father, mother, sibling, or offspring) and compared age at GC diagnosis among these patient groups. Baseline characteristics were obtained from a prospectively collected database. Information about the family member's age at GC diagnosis was obtained by questionnaire.

A total of 924 patients (21.6%) had a first-degree family history of GC. The mean age at GC diagnosis in patients having paternal history of GC was 54.4 ± 10.4 years and was significantly younger than in those without a first-degree family history (58.1 ± 12.0 years, P < 0.001). However, this finding was not observed in patients who had an affected mother (57.2 ± 10.0 years) or sibling (62.2 ± 9.8 years). Among patients with family member having early-onset GC (< 50 years old), mean age at diagnosis was 47.7 ± 10.3 years for those with an affected father, 48.6 ± 10.4 years for those with an affected mother, and 57.4 ± 11.5 years for those with an affected sibling. Thus, patients with a parent diagnosed before 50 years of age developed GC 10.4 or 9.5 years earlier than individuals without a family history of GC (both P < 0.001).

Early-onset GC before age of 50 was associated with parental history of early-onset of GC. Individual having such family history need to start screening earlier.