Spinal Cord Tumor hereditary?

[samuridude]

Does anyone have a relative who has been diagnosed ? I have a uncle who had a inoperative noncancerous tumor higher in his neck than mine.
 
After mine was diagnosed, my uncle told me his neurologist asked him if any of his siblings had a tumor, and they should get MRI’s. I guess it skipped a generation

with me.

[Bird]

Von Hippel-Lindau Syndrome is a genetic condition that causes tumors and cysts to develop in odd places. Might be worth checking out with a geneticist if you think this could be apply to you.

[samuridude]

Thanks Bird,

I read about it and found yet another clue. My other uncle, ( brother to the one who has the higher spinal tumor) found cysts on his kidney's. He has been monitoring them for the last 5 years.

[Bird]

That is quite fascinating, because my sister has cysts on her kidney, too… Looking forward to healing up enough to visit a geneticist!

[samuridude]

I don't believe in coincidences, especially when they come in 3's. I talked to my other uncle who is not a blood relative yesterday. He was telling me he had 2 spinal tumors in his neck, that was just found with an MRI. It's interesting that both uncles and I used to do a lot of back packing and mountain climbing when I was in my early teens. Now we all have spinal tumors, that's some coincidence. Maybe we all were exposed to some sort of toxins, or radiation? Then again we could of been abducted by aliens and subjected to experiments. Ha Ha       

[pringleman]

Could be the backpacking. I used to do a lot of walking with a 30kg backpack. But there is also a lot of cancer in the family as well.

I was thinking we could do an online survey to try and work out common causes. There is far to little research in this area.

[samuridude]

I was thinking of what we did together while backpacking. I guess we drank the same creek /river water and eat the same freshly caught fish.   

[lw]

My Dad's brother has 3 benign tumours on his brain. I don't know if they're the same type as mine (neurofibroma) as I feel a bit awkward asking. It is a concern though because the type of tumour I have can be linked to neurofibromatosis, which is a genetically inherited condition. Of course it may just be a coincidence, but if I hear of any other first degree relatives with a CNS tumour I should probably go for genetic testing.

[HH]

My sister has just been diagnosed with astrocytoma. Our family has a very strong history of breast/ovarian/lung cancer. I am an 11 year breast cancer survivor and I have the BRCA2 gene mutation. I have been researching the BRCA2 mutation, and some literature suggests a correlation between BRCA2 and astrocytoma...My sister has not been tested for BRCA2, but it would be interesting if she was positive for the mutation. I have another sister that has tested positive already.

[samuridude]

That's interesting because my sister had stage 4 breast cancer.