Can bladder cancer be inherited by offspring?

Individuals who have a parent or sibling with bladder cancer have an increased risk of developing bladder cancer themselves. This finding adds to evidence that bladder cancer is at least partially hereditary. Another known risk factor for bladder cancer is smoking.

"While both genetic and environmental factors contribute to bladder cancer, little is known about how bladder cancer runs in families."
In the study, scientists reviewed the incidence records of more than 2,000 offspring of bladder cancer patients and found that the brothers of male patients who developed cancer before the age of 45 had the highest risk of the disease, which was 7 times that of normal male brothers.
Sons of parents with bladder cancer have an 85 percent higher risk of developing bladder cancer than offspring of healthy parents. Daughters of parents with bladder cancer have a two-fold higher risk of developing bladder cancer than daughters of healthy parents. Overall, individuals with a sibling with bladder cancer have a three-fold higher risk of developing bladder cancer than those with healthy siblings, the researchers report in the December 2001 issue of The Journal of Urology.
Bladder cancer is three to four times more common in men than in women, with the highest incidence in older men. The authors suggest that the higher incidence in men may be due to a cancer-related gene on the X chromosome.