Family History Raises Brain-Cancer Risk

People with brain cancer in the family are more likely to develop it themselves, a study has found. Researchers looked at records of 1,401 people with brain cancer and their families. Risk of glioblastoma was double for people with a close family member who had this type of tumor. Risk of astrocytoma was four times as high for people with a family history of it. The study looked only at cancers that started in the brain. It did not include those that spread to the brain from elsewhere in the body. Results appeared September 23 in the journal Neurology.