Prolonged survival as a component of a hereditary breast and nonpolyposis colon cancer.

Identification of prolonged survival in hereditary breast and colon cancer (exclusive of familial multiple adenomatous polyposis coli) have been shown to be statistically significant (P less than .05) when compared to the American College of Surgeons Tumor Registry for these respective neoplasms. Our hypothesis is that the genotype in hereditary cancer determines both susceptibility and natural history, such that increased survival is a manifestation of the natural history.