Germline mutations in BRCA1 and BRCA2 confer high risks of breast and ovarian cancer, but the average magnitude of these risks is uncertain and may depend on the context. Estimates based on multiple-case families may be enriched for mutations of higher risk and/or other familial risk factors, whereas risk estimates from studies based on cases unselected for family history have been imprecise. We pooled pedigree data from 22 studies involving 8,139 index case patients unselected for family history with female (86%) or male (2%) breast cancer or epithelial ovarian cancer (12%), 500 of whom had been found to carry a germline mutation in BRCA1 or BRCA2. Breast and ovarian cancer incidence rates for mutation carriers were estimated using a modified segregation analysis, based on the occurrence of these cancers in the relatives of mutation-carrying index case patients. The average cumulative risks in BRCA1-mutation carriers by age 70 years were 65% (95% confidence interval 44%-78%) for breast cancer and 39% (18%-54%) for ovarian cancer. The corresponding estimates for BRCA2 were 45% (31%-56%) and 11% (2.4%-19%). Relative risks of breast cancer declined significantly with age for BRCA1-mutation carriers (P trend.0012) but not for BRCA2-mutation carriers. Risks in carriers were higher when based on index breast cancer cases diagnosed at <35 years of age. We found some evidence for a reduction in risk in women from earlier birth cohorts and for variation in risk by mutation position for both genes. The pattern of cancer risks was similar to those found in multiple-case families, but their absolute magnitudes were lower, particularly for BRCA2. The variation in risk by age at diagnosis of index case is consistent with the effects of other genes modifying cancer risk in carriers.

Polygenic risk scores have shown great promise in predicting complex disease risk and will become more accurate as training sample sizes increase. The standard approach for calculating risk scores involves linkage disequilibrium (LD)-based marker pruning and applying a p value threshold to association statistics, but this discards information and can reduce predictive accuracy. We introduce LDpred, a method that infers the posterior mean effect size of each marker by using a prior on effect sizes and LD information from an external reference panel. Theory and simulations show that LDpred outperforms the approach of pruning followed by thresholding, particularly at large sample sizes. Accordingly, predicted R(2) increased from 20.1% to 25.3% in a large schizophrenia dataset and from 9.8% to 12.0% in a large multiple sclerosis dataset. A similar relative improvement in accuracy was observed for three additional large disease datasets and for non-European schizophrenia samples. The advantage of LDpred over existing methods will grow as sample sizes increase.

This study shows that reproductive factors and BMI are most clearly associated with hormone receptor-positive tumors and suggest that triple-negative or CBP tumors may have distinct etiology.

A single founder allele of the CHEK2 gene has been associated with predisposition to breast and prostate cancer in North America and Europe. The CHEK2 protein participates in the DNA damage response in many cell types and is therefore a good candidate for a multisite cancer susceptibility gene. Three founder alleles are present in Poland. Two of these result in a truncated CHEK2 protein, and the other is a missense substitution of an isoleucine for a threonine. We ascertained the prevalence of each of these alleles in 4,008 cancer cases and 4,000 controls, all from Poland. The majority of the common cancer sites were represented. Positive associations with protein-truncating alleles were seen for cancers of the thyroid (odds ratio [OR] 4.9; P=.0006), breast (OR 2.2; P=.02), and prostate (OR 2.2; P=.04). The missense variant I157T was associated with an increased risk of breast cancer (OR 1.4; P=.02), colon cancer (OR 2.0; P=.001), kidney cancer (OR 2.1; P=.0006), prostate cancer (OR 1.7; P=.002), and thyroid cancer (OR 1.9; P=.04). The range of cancers associated with mutations of the CHEK2 gene may be much greater than previously thought.

Genome wide association studies (GWAS) have identified four susceptibility loci for epithelial ovarian cancer (EOC) with another two loci being close to genome-wide significance. We pooled data from a GWAS conducted in North America with another GWAS from the United Kingdom. We selected the top 24,551 SNPs for inclusion on the iCOGS custom genotyping array. Follow-up genotyping was carried out in 18,174 cases and 26,134 controls from 43 studies from the Ovarian Cancer Association Consortium. We validated the two loci at 3q25 and 17q21 previously near genome-wide significance and identified three novel loci associated with risk; two loci associated with all EOC subtypes, at 8q21 (rs11782652, P=5.5×10-9) and 10p12 (rs1243180; P=1.8×10-8), and another locus specific to the serous subtype at 17q12 (rs757210; P=8.1×10-10). An integrated molecular analysis of genes and regulatory regions at these loci provided evidence for functional mechanisms underlying susceptibility that implicates CHMP4C in the pathogenesis of ovarian cancer.

We report a genome-wide association study of melanoma conducted by the GenoMEL consortium based on 317k tagging SNPs for 1650 genetically-enriched cases (from Europe and Australia) and 4336 controls and subsequent replication in 1149 genetically-enriched cases and 964 controls and a population-based case-control study of 1163 cases and 903 controls. The genome-wide screen identified five regions with genotyped or imputed SNPs reaching p < 5×10−7; three regions were replicated: 16q24 encompassing MC1R (overall p=2.54×10−27 for rs258322), 11q14-q21 encompassing TYR (p=2.41×10−14 for rs1393350) and 9p21 adjacent to MTAP and flanking CDKN2A (p=4.03×10−7 for rs7023329). MC1R and TYR are associated with pigmentation, freckling and cutaneous sun sensitivity, well-recognised melanoma risk factors, while the 9p21 locus is novel for common variants associated with melanoma. Despite wide variation in allele frequency, these genetic variants show notable homogeneity of effect across populations of European ancestry living at different latitudes and contribute independently to melanoma risk.

We conducted imputation to the 1000 Genomes Project of four genome-wide association studies of lung cancer in populations of European ancestry (11,348 cases and 15,861 controls) and genotyped an additional 10,246 cases and 38,295 controls for follow-up. We identified large-effect genome-wide associations for squamous lung cancer with the rare variants of BRCA2-K3326X (rs11571833; odds ratio [OR]=2.47, P=4.74×10−20) and of CHEK2-I157T (rs17879961; OR=0.38 P=1.27×10−13). We also showed an association between common variation at 3q28 (TP63; rs13314271; OR=1.13, P=7.22×10−10) and lung adenocarcinoma previously only reported in Asians. These findings provide further evidence for inherited genetic susceptibility to lung cancer and its biological basis. Additionally, our analysis demonstrates that imputation can identify rare disease-causing variants having substantive effects on cancer risk from pre-existing GWAS data.

Oophorectomy is associated with reduced risk of ovarian and fallopian tube cancer in high-risk women, although there is a substantial residual risk for peritoneal cancer in BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutation carriers following prophylactic salpingo-oophorectomy.