DEAR DR. GOTT: Our family has recently been hit hard by a rarely identified genetic cancer called hereditary diffuse gastric cancer. My husband’s mother died of an unidentified stomach cancer at the age of 52 in 1982. Now we have also lost my husband, at age 58 in early 2009, due to stage IV stomach cancer. He was in superb health before this nearly-impossible-to-detect disease raced from his stomach to other organs where it was finally detectable.

Early in his disease, he wondered about a family risk factor, but we didn’t fit the criteria for genetic testing. Only when his sister and I pushed forward with our request, did we find that six of seven family members tested positive. Younger family members still await testing when they are in their late teens, so there may be several more at risk in our small family. [Read more...]