Hello Mast and thank you for posting.

I am sorry to hear about your sister, this must be a difficult time for you. 

'Disseminated Abdominal Malignancy' is the term used for a cancer that is found throughout the abdomen area.

It is difficult to say what your sister's life expectancy would have been if this cancer had been detected. How you get on with a cancer diagnosis depends on several factors. What type of cancer it was, whether she could have had treatment, and her response to that treatment would have all affected her overall prognosis. 

When cancer is in the family, people often assume that this greatly increases their risk of developing it, but this isn't always true.  Although the genes we inherit may influence our risk, this might not be by very much. No one is risk-free and the risk of cancer increases for all of us as we get older. This is quite a complicated topic and it might be useful to look at our website which has a section explaining genes and inherited cancer risk.

Cancer is caused by a build-up of changes in our genes and/or the way our genes behave. Changes occur because of mistakes or faults which in most cases of cancer have developed over someone's lifetime and are not inherited. Faulty cancer genes can be passed from one generation to the next, but they are uncommon.

Genetic testing in the NHS is only usually offered to people with a strong family history, as this predicts who is most likely to have inherited a cancer gene fault.

We have more information about risks and causes and about screening on our website.

If this is something you are worried about, do discuss this further with your GP. If you have other questions about your sisters situation, do talk to someone from the hospital team who looked after her.

Please do get back to us if you have any more questions or give us a call us on 0808 800 4040. We are here from Monday to Friday, 9am to 5pm.

Take care, 

Sarah.