Therapeutic and prophylactic gastrectomy in a family with hereditary diffuse gastric cancer secondary to a CDH1 mutation: a case series.

Background: Gastric cancer is the fifth most prevalent and the third most lethal cancer worldwide, causing approximately 720,000 deaths annually. Although most cases of gastric cancers are sporadic, one of its inherited forms, hereditary diffuse gastric cancer (HDGC), constitutes about 1-3% of cases. Interestingly, females in families with HDGC are also predisposed to developing lobular breast cancer (LBC).