Forester wrote:Is Cancer hereditary? My grand dad currently has both colon and prostate cancer. It pains me to see him waste away like that despite going for regular chemo and being treated by one of the best Oncologist in the country. My father, had
Multiple Myeloma but through treatment in India and God's grace, pulled through and is back on his feet again and regained his earlier frame - review after 5 years. My dad's brother also had to go for a pet scan though i'm not privy to the results.
Pole sana@Forester. Good lay info about cancer can be found
hereAs for your question, see highlighted sections in this explanation.
Cancer is a genetic disease—that is, it is caused by changes to genes that control the way our cells function, especially how they grow and divide.
Genetic changes that cause cancer
can be inherited from our parents.
They can also arise during a person’s lifetime as a result of errors that occur as cells divide or because of damage to DNA caused by certain environmental exposures. Cancer-causing environmental exposures include substances, such as the chemicals in tobacco smoke, and radiation, such as ultraviolet rays from the sun. (Our Cancer Causes and Risk Factors page has more information.)
Each person’s cancer has a unique combination of genetic changes. As the cancer continues to grow, additional changes will occur. Even within the same tumor, different cells may have different genetic changes.
In general, cancer cells have more genetic changes, such as mutations in DNA, than normal cells. Some of these changes may have nothing to do with the cancer; they may be the result of the cancer, rather than its cause.