Background & objective: Familial clustering of NPC has been widely observed, however, related investigations were mainly involved in individual reports for high-risk families or case-control study with small sample size, so no quantitive evaluation for NPC risk in relatives of high-risk families documented in high-risk area until now. The purpose of the study was to estimate NPC risk among relatives of high-risk pedigrees in Guangong province, so as to provide information for genetic epidemiology and clinical genetic consultation.
Methods: One hundred and thirteen high-risk pedigrees were collected in the Cancer Center of Sun Yat-sen University, and standardized incidence ratio (SIR) was used to estimate NPC risk of first degree relatives (FDR).
Results: NPC risk was significantly higher in first degree relatives that in general population, and SIR was 37.55; in addition, SIRs were 50.72, 79.64, 7.12, and 33.58 in their brothers, sisters, fathers, and mothers respectively.
Conclusion: NPC risk of relatives in familial NPC pedigrees elevates 7.12 to 79.64 times in high-risk families.