Your relatives might have important health information about your family’s history of cancer and they might have different views about cancer that you don’t even know of. But sometimes our family health history provides clues to what the future may hold for our own health.

 Having those conversations and get to know about what types of cancer some of the family members were diagnosed with, helps to understand your cancer risks and how to reduce them.

While for many people having health history related conversations in families is not taken serious or even thought of, cancer specialists urge all families to discuss family members’ health history, including any changes. You can’t change your genes, but you can change behaviors that affect your health so, knowing that history can help you figure out your risk and take action as needed.

According to Cancer Research UK, all cancers develop because something has gone wrong with one or more of the genes in a cell. A change in a gene is called a ‘fault’ or ‘mutation’ and these faults can make a cell stop working properly. It may then become cancerous and divide and grow uncontrollably. Most gene changes happen during our lifetime but some can be inherited from a parent.

How can genes cause cancer?

"Some faulty genes that increase the risk of cancer can be passed on from parent to child and these genes are called inherited cancer gene faults. They occur when there is a fault in the genes in an egg or sperm cell at the time of conception. These faults in the initial sperm or egg cell are copied into every single cell in the body. The faulty genes can then pass from generation to generation. They are called germline mutations.

"Children inherent genes from their parents and if a parent has a gene fault then each child has a 1 in 2 chance (50%) of inheriting it. Some children will have the faulty gene and an increased risk of developing cancer and some children won’t.

Cancer Research UK also states that being born with inherited faulty genes doesn’t mean that a person will definitely get cancer. But they have a higher risk of developing particular types of cancer than other people and they are more likely to develop cancer at a young age.  For a cancer to develop, further gene changes (mutations) need to happen and this usually happens over many years.

Achille Manirakiza, an oncologist says cancer history matters and that there are multiple familial cancers that disseminate in germline manner, some more than others.

"Some disease presentations compel digging deep in the family, for example some subtypes of breast cancer occurring in younger and pre-menopausal women. There is another phenomenon we have been seeing in clinics of young patients with colon cancer as well,” he says.

Manirakiza adds that they are only getting started in looking for the genetics behind some breast and prostate cancer patients in Rwanda, however the level of information around family history with their people is still underwhelming because cancer is still a huge taboo in Rwanda’s communities.

"We hope we start consolidating a good database of such diseases around here, and hopefully patients will be open to speak to their relatives about their diseases because cancer history really matters,” adds Manirakiza.

However most of cancer is not hereditary, some of the most common cancers like breast cancer, colon cancer, ovarian cancer, pancreatic cancer and melanoma which is a type of skin cancer, among others are hereditary which means they can be passed through genes.