Family cancer history a key risk marker in IBD patients

A new Swedish registry study from Karolinska Institutet, published in Gastroenterology, finds that IBD patients with multiple close relatives with colorectal cancer face a significantly higher risk of developing the disease themselves. This raises questions about whether family cancer history should carry more weight in future surveillance guidelines. The study, covering 124,387 IBD patients in Sweden from 1996 to 2023, compared them to over 1.2 million people. During a median follow-up of eleven years, 1,882 IBD patients developed colorectal cancer. Those with two or more first-degree relatives with the disease had roughly 2.6 times higher risk than IBD patients without such family history. Current international guidelines emphasize whether a first-degree relative developed colorectal cancer before age 50. However, researcher Åsa Everhov notes the number of family cancer cases may be a more important risk marker, suggesting this factor could be considered in future recommendations for cancer monitoring.