Mroueh, Rayan; Tanskanen, Tomas; Haapaniemi, Aaro; Salo, Tuula; Malila, Nea; Mäkitie, Antti; Pitkäniemi, Janne
(2020)
Background Reported patterns of familial aggregation of head and neck cancer (HNC) vary greatly, with many studies hampered by the limited number of subjects. Methods Altogether 923 early-onset ( Results Of all early-onset HNC families, only 21 (2.3%) had familial HNC cancers at any age and less than five familial early onset HNC cancers among first-degree relatives. The cumulative risk of HNC for siblings by age 60 (0.52%) was at population level (0.33%). No increased familial risk of early-onset HNC could be discerned in family members (SIR 2.68, 95% CI 0.32-9.68 for first-degree relatives). Conclusions Our study indicates that the cumulative and relative familial risk of early-onset HNC is modest in the Finnish population and, at most, only a minor proportion of early-onset HNCs are due solely to inherited genetic mutations.