Historical overview of familial gastric cancer

Family history has contributed greatly to understanding inherited diseases throughout the centuries, in particular familial and hereditary cancer syndromes. To assess the cancer risk for unaffected members and to identify a possible genetic cause, it is important to describe a detailed family history, including information about life status, gender, age at onset, affected members and the number of generations. Therefore, a careful anamnesis focused on oncological data, could lead to the diagnosis of familial and/ or hereditary cancer. The defi nition of familial is a nonspecifi c status and indicates only a positive family history. Rather, the diagnosis of hereditary cancer has to be confi rmed by some specifi c genetic tests. Nevertheless, the fi rst step in this procedure is the collection of family information, one's history.