{"entity":{"id":"paper-mucci-nortwincan-heritability-jama-2016","kind":"paper","name":"Familial risk and heritability of cancer among twins in Nordic countries (NorTwinCan)","aka":[],"tldr":"Following more than 200,000 twins in Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden for a median of 32 years, this study estimated that about a third of the variation in cancer risk is inherited, with higher shares for melanoma and prostate cancer.","summary":"A prospective cohort of 80,309 identical and 123,382 same-sex fraternal twin individuals in the population-based twin registers of Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden, followed through the cancer registers between 1943 and 2010. Time-to-event models estimated familial risk, the risk of cancer given that a co-twin developed it, and heritability, adjusting for age and follow-up and accounting for censoring and the competing risk of death. Karolinska Institutet's Department of Medical Epidemiology and Biostatistics was among the collaborating centres.","asOf":"2026-11-03","links":[{"label":"JAMA 2016","url":"https://doi.org/10.1001/jama.2015.17703"},{"label":"PubMed","url":"https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26746459/"}],"tags":[],"related":["paper-lichtenstein-twins-cancer-heritability-nejm-2000"],"cancers":["prostate","melanoma"],"sections":["prevention"],"technologies":[],"targets":[],"drugs":[],"companies":[],"institutions":["karolinska"],"pathways":[],"terms":[],"trials":[],"people":[],"bottlenecks":["b-hereditary-risk"],"keyPapers":[],"journals":["jama"],"dependsOn":[],"notes":[],"journal":"JAMA","year":2016,"doi":"10.1001/jama.2015.17703","pmid":"26746459","authors":"Mucci LA, Hjelmborg JB, Harris JR, Czene K, Havelick DJ, Scheike T, Graff RE, Holst K, et al.; Nordic Twin Study of Cancer (NorTwinCan) Collaboration","paperType":"observational","findings":["27,156 incident cancers were diagnosed in 23,980 people, a cumulative incidence of 32 per cent.","Cumulative cancer risk was 46 per cent (95 per cent CI 44 to 48) in identical twins and 37 per cent (36 to 38) in fraternal twins whose co-twin developed cancer, against 32 per cent overall.","Heritability of cancer overall was 33 per cent (95 per cent CI 30 to 37); significant heritability was found for skin melanoma (58 per cent), prostate (57 per cent), non-melanoma skin (43 per cent), ovary (39 per cent), kidney (38 per cent), breast (31 per cent) and corpus uteri (27 per cent)."],"whatItMeans":"It gives patients and counsellors population figures for how much a twin's or close relative's cancer raises one's own risk, cancer by cancer, and it shows that for prostate cancer and melanoma inherited risk is substantial.","caveats":["Twin heritability is a population estimate under model assumptions, not a measure of any individual's genetic risk.","An erratum was published (JAMA 2016;315(8):822)."],"participants":203691},"route":"/key-papers/paper-mucci-nortwincan-heritability-jama-2016/","neighbours":{"paper":[{"id":"paper-lichtenstein-twins-cancer-heritability-nejm-2000","kind":"paper","name":"Environmental and heritable factors in the causation of cancer: analyses of cohorts of twins from Sweden, Denmark, and Finland","route":"/key-papers/paper-lichtenstein-twins-cancer-heritability-nejm-2000/"}],"cancer":[{"id":"melanoma","kind":"cancer","name":"Melanoma","route":"/cancers/melanoma/"},{"id":"prostate","kind":"cancer","name":"Prostate cancer","route":"/cancers/prostate/"}],"section":[{"id":"prevention","kind":"section","name":"Prevention & Risk","route":"/fronts/prevention/"}],"institution":[{"id":"karolinska","kind":"institution","name":"Karolinska University Hospital","route":"/institutions/karolinska/"}],"bottleneck":[{"id":"b-hereditary-risk","kind":"bottleneck","name":"Inherited risk is mostly unidentified","route":"/bottlenecks/b-hereditary-risk/"}],"journal":[{"id":"jama","kind":"journal","name":"JAMA","route":"/journals/jama/"}]}}