Almost 50% of testicular cancer risk is passed down through genetic faults: Study

The Institute of Cancer Research (ICR), London carried out the study, which says that genetic inheritance is much more important in testicular cancer than in other cancer types, where it accounts for less than 20% of the danger.

Scientists studied statistical patterns of ancestral testicular cancer within families across 15.7 million people from the Swedish Population Registry cancer family database, of which 9,324 individuals had suffered from it.

It was followed by the genetic code of 6,000 men in the UK from two earlier testicular cancer studies, of which 986 had been diagnosed with the disease.

The combined analysis found that 49% of all the potential factors contributing to testicular cancer risk are inherited.

It was also revealed that the inherited risk comes from a large number of minor changes in DNA code, instead of one faulty gene with a big effect.

According to the study, known mutations only account for 9.1% of the risk of developing the disease, indicating that the most of the genetic variants that raise testicular cancer risk are yet to be found.

ICR senior researcher in genetics and epidemiology Clare Turnbull said: "Our study has shown that testicular cancer is a strongly heritable disease. Around half of a man’s risk of developing testicular cancer comes from the genes he inherits from his parents — with environmental and behavioural factors contributing to the other half.

"Our findings have important implications in that they show that if we can discover these genetic causes, screening of men with a family history of testicular cancer could help to diagnose those at greatest risk, and help them to manage that risk.

"But our study also shows that much work remains to be done. There are a lot of genetic factors that cause testicular cancer which we are yet to find — so the first step must be to identify the genetic drivers of testicular cancer so we can develop new ways to prevent it."