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Genetic link or predisposition?


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#1 MJB

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Posted 19 March 2011 - 09:52 AM

I keep thinking to myself, hmmmmm

My father was just diagnosed with lymphoma originating in the testicles, my maternal uncle died with cml in 1999, paternal grandfather died from bone cancer, maternal grandmother died from breast cancer as did first cousin on dad's side, sister recovering from  breast cancer.

It seems to me that I am basically genetically screwed!!

How can this all not have some impact on my odds of getting cml or some other form of cancer?

MJB



#2 hannibellemo

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Posted 19 March 2011 - 11:00 AM

Hi, MJB,

My mother died of lung cancer - she smoked. My sister died of medullary cancer of the thyroid, also linked to radiation. I blame those damn x-ray machines they used to have in the 50's where you could see the bone alignment inside shoes. I was fascinated with them. Wonder how many years of rads I accumulated from them before I was 10? I believe my uncle developed a leukemia when he was elderly. My father had RA, knock wood, no indication of that. Don't really know of any others in my family.

Obviously, there are well proven genetic predispostions with breast, ovarian, and colon cancer. Other than benzene for AML and radiation for all leukemias I've been told there is no proven link to CML.

Does it really matter though? There doesn't seem to be much we could have done other than to avoid radiation and, perhaps, benzene. Today, of course, that's common sense. I can't help but think what many of the people in Japan today will be looking at 10 - 40 years down the road.

It's interesting to speculate on the 'whys', but I wouldn't want to waste much energy dwelling on it.

Pat


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"You can't change the direction of the wind but you can adjust your sails."

DX 12/08; Gleevec 400mg; liver toxicity; Sprycel 100mg.; CCyR 4/10; MMR 8/10; Pleural Effusion 2/12; Sprycel 50mg. Maintaining MMR; 2/15 PCRU; 8/16 drifting in and out of undetected like a wave meeting the shore. Retired 12/23/2016! 18 months of PCRU, most recent at Mayo on 7/25/17 was negative at their new sensitivity reporting of 0.003.<p>


#3 SunNsand

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Posted 19 March 2011 - 03:57 PM

  I have the same thoughts and worries as you MJB. Your family sounds similar to mine. We have gone through genetic testing and I have young family members positive for cancer mutations that gives them an 85-90% chance of having cancer. It's so disheartening watching family die for generations of cancer then to find out the younger ones will probably have it too. My sister and I were absolutely crushed when the younger ones tested positive. Now their children have a good chance of having it. It just doesn't seem to end. I was told my family was written about in the 1960's JAMA. My older family members are gone so I haven't ever been able to follow up on that. I see this as a massive puzzle and I want to solve it but I don't know how. I've had people say, "don't dwell on it, you don't have any control anyway". They are right, I don't have control, but if their family was impacted the same as mine has been, they would think differently. It's like a giant evil monster stalks my family and I want it to stop!

SunNsand



#4 cousineg

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Posted 19 March 2011 - 06:39 PM

''Risk factors associated with some other cancers, such as family history, diet,

smoking and infections, do not appear to influence a person's risk of developing CML.''

Extract of http://www.healthtree.com/articles/leukemia/chronic-myelogenous/risk-factors/

Other link:  http://www.cmleukemia.com/cml-causes.html



#5 Marnie

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Posted 19 March 2011 - 07:21 PM

Hey, MJB. . .No one in my family, nuclear or extended, has ever been diagnosed with any type of cancer.  I assumed that I was safe.  Found out that's not the case.  I firmly believe that my diagnosis was brought on by intense job stress.  No scientific evidence to prove it, but my job went to hell when a new boss came into the picture.  Symptoms started shortly thereafter, and finally was diagnosed after 3 years of hell in the workplace.  I think that everyone has the potential for cancer cells starting their relentless division, and many things can trigger the start of it. . .

Marnie



#6 Guest_billronm_*

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Posted 19 March 2011 - 08:17 PM

Hi MJB, and everyone else out  there. I have been thinking. I don't think Benzene,smoking,diet,etc.etc.I feel like I've been nuked all my life.I had pneumonia when I was a baby. I was prone to bronchitis all my life, about 20 years ago I had double lobar pneumonia. I was getting chest x-rays constantly especially when I had the pneumonia. I think we,ve all had the upper and lower gi series. We break bones any time we go to the er they do a chest x-ray. Mammograms.every year I have to have that scope test on my throat. cat scans I had that dye injected in me 3 different times.I had 3 nuclear stress tests in the last 5 years.But I had a malignant meloma about 6 years ago I really think my body had reached its limit of radiation.The day of my surgery they gave me a pet scan.they gave me four shots in my chest where the melanoma was.the pet scan showed 2 hot spots so just before the surgery my doctor gave me 4 shots of some kind of blue dye on my chest they removed the melanoma and 2 lymph nodes we caught it in time thank God.When they suspected cml i had to get a full body scan.And that's only the things I can remember off of the top of my head.Theres cancer in my family but heart disease is our biggest problem. I'm getting to the point that I want to refuse a lot of these tests.They can have my blood,my body, my hemerroids, But I am not getting nuked any more. Most of you are younger than me I'm an exception to the rule. If you need an x-ray or some kind of test done find out if there is another way to get this test.Probably not but it doesn't hurt to ask.

I sure am glad someone brought this up because I have been thinking how I could have got this disease.

                                                                                              LOL BILLIE



#7 GerryL

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Posted 19 March 2011 - 11:49 PM

Hi MJB,

I was the first (that I'm aware of) to get cancer in my family, I expected to have a heart attack or stroke, just like everyone else in the family. I believe that same as Marnie, that long term stress can help bring it on. I looked after my mother for a number of years - she had emphysema from 20 years of  passive smoking whilst working in the service industry. I also continued to work full time, so trying to juggle everything gave me stress for around 10 years. She passed away two and a half years ago and last year in July, I was officially diagnosed.

Gerry



#8 MJB

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Posted 20 March 2011 - 12:22 PM

Happy Spring everyone and thank you for all the thoughtfull replies!

How and why we got this is a question I am sure we all wonder about from time to time. I hope the medical community investigates all of the possibilities. I think genetics should never be dismissed just because we don't yet understand  their full role. The same is true for stress. Knowing that expousure to benezene and radiation are causal is a good first step in understanding and curing cml.

Stress - hmmm, my adult daughter and two grandsons moved in with us due to divorce in the six months prior to my diagnosis. Talk about stress!!! If anyone could cause cancer those two little hellions could!! I still can't get the stains out of my dinning room chairs. They played with matches, swiped toys from friends and stole my heart! :-) wouldn't change a thing but I AM glad they now have their own place and they are no longer acting out!

You just gotta smile and keep going!!

MJB



#9 HeatherZ

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Posted 21 March 2011 - 08:08 AM

I live close to Three Mile Island and in 1979 there wasa partial meltdown.  I was only in 2nd grade at the time but I remember my family loading into cars and evacuating to the mountains and driving right by TMI!  I know there are so many theories and guesses about what causes CML and so far these has not been anything conclusive.  I just tell people that driving past TMI during a nuclear disaster was probably not a good idea.  I am just the unlucky one of the family to get CML.

Heather

dx3/2010 G400 since



#10 PhilB

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Posted 21 March 2011 - 08:33 AM

There are three key factors to be considered when looking at a family history of cancer - genetics (are you carrying dodgy genes), environment (do you come from an area / culture with eg high Radon levels, nasty industrial byproducts or an unhealthy lifestyle) and blind chance.  Most people tend to forget about the last one and assume there must always be a cause for this kind of pattern, but with one person in four dieing of cancer, the odds are that if you took a sample of 2,000 or so people you'd probably find at least one with both parents and all four grandparents having died of cancer even if it was all just a random roll of the dice.  Your family history is a lot less stark than that so there is every possiblity that it's all just completely random.



#11 lala

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Posted 21 March 2011 - 06:11 PM

Hi to all!  I have wanted to discuss this for a long time.......here is my story!  Diagnosed in 2006, after burying my mother and both my brothers.....my entire family died during a 15 month period!!!! My brothers were 46 and 38!!!!!!!!!! OMG!!!!  Talk about stress......I also was working and raising 3 kids!!!!!  YIKES!!!!  My friends would ask me how I was handling it, and I would tell them I had a lot of emotional support from two best friends---but wondered if my body would take a hit because no one can live under that much stress------soon after, my blood was showing a rise in platelets!!!!!    I have been told I probably would have gotten CML later in life----that the stress brought it on earlier than planned..........thank God for Gleevec......and all its side effects!!!!!  :-(  When I was diagnosed, they said 7 years.....now they say 20 years!!!!!  I WILL TAKE IT!!!!

At the end of every appointment, my female oncologist would say: REMEMBER, NO STRESS.  Good words to remember!!!!! and to try to live by!!!!!!  We are all lucky to be alive!  My next door neighbor died of CML in the late 80's before all our drugs......  thanks to TREY, I just started taking my G after lunch and dinner AND I AM FEELING SSSSOOOOO MUCH BETTER!!!!  THANKS FOR THE GREAT SUGGESTION!!!!

~Laura from Chicago suburb



#12 Tedsey

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Posted 21 March 2011 - 07:27 PM

With an increase in human longevity and the higher the chances for DNA copying errors as we age, I can totally believe in the randomness of many cancers.  At this time, I believe we are just "unlucky".  However, if things turn out well with TKIs, most of us shall live a normal life span, (excluding anything else that can curb our existence).  I have high hopes for that.  I am not sure about benzene.  But it appears there is enough support for ionizing radiation as a possible culprit.  As for stress, I can believe that one too.






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