Can ovarian cancer be inherited?
Ovarian cancer, like most tumors, has genetic factors involved in its etiology, but it is not a genetic disease. Only five to ten percent of ovarian cancer patients have a genetic background. More than ninety percent of ovarian cancer cases are sporadic, meaning that if a mother has ovarian cancer, it does not directly inherit to her daughter. However, individuals with a family history of ovarian cancer have a significantly higher risk of developing the disease compared to the general population, especially those who carry mutations in the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes. These gene mutations can be inherited from parents, so individuals carrying these mutations have a significantly higher risk of developing ovarian cancer than the healthy population.
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