CNN reports on a family who used genetic testing to identify a family tendency for stomach cancer and take pre-emptive action. Excerpts below.
Link: CNN.com - 11 cousins have stomachs removed to avoid cancer risk - Jun 18, 2006
Mike Slabaugh doesn't have a stomach. Neither do his 10 cousins.
Growing up, they watched helplessly as a rare hereditary stomach cancer killed their grandmother and some of their parents, aunts and uncles.
Determined to outsmart the cancer, they turned to genetic testing. Upon learning they had inherited grandmother Golda Bradfield's flawed gene, they had two options: Risk the odds that they might not develop cancer, with a 70 percent chance they would; or have their stomachs removed.
The latter would mean a challenging life of eating very little, very often.
All the cousins chose the life-changing operation. Doctors say they're the largest family to have preventive surgery to protect themselves from hereditary stomach cancer.
Advances in genetic testing are increasingly giving families with bad genes a chance to see the future, sometimes with the hope of pre-emptive action. People have had stomachs, breasts, ovaries, colons or thyroid glands removed when genetic tests showed they carried a defective gene that gave them a high risk of cancer.
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