On Sunday, Dr. Henry T. Lynch, known as “the father of hereditary cancer detection and prevention,” passed away at the age of 91.
He was the founder and director of the Hereditary Cancer Center at Creighton, which was incepted in 1984.
The American physician dedicated his whole life to researching cancer, particularly hereditary cancers.
Throughout his career, he spent over 50 years studying the cancer histories of over 3,000 families, looking for the genetic links in certain types of cancer.
In the early 1960s, Dr. Lynch started studying potential hereditary causes of colon cancer. The medical community, at the time, did not consider cancer a hereditary disease.
And at that same time, the researcher first coined the term “Lynch syndrome” to recognize his contributions toward identifying the genetic link to ‘hereditary nonpolyposis colon cancer.’ Lynch syndrome is a type of inherited cancer syndrome linked to a genetic predisposition to different types of cancer.
Dr. Lynch said, “Nobody believed me. At that time, cancer was all thought to be caused by environment. Exposure to chemicals. But I knew we had something here. I knew we could potentially save lives.”
Lynch syndrome provided a more accurate and insightful prediction of cancer risk. His research helped doctors to detect cancer early, which eventually helped in initiating the treatment, improving survival chances and the quality of life.
Dr. Lynch was the first man to discover the hereditary breast-ovarian cancer syndrome. And this groundbreaking discovery led to the identification of BRCA mutations that helped with the diagnosis of hereditary breast cancer.
The prominent cancer researcher was born in Lawrence, Massachusetts. He grew up in New York and later joined the U.S. Navy at the age of 16 after using his older cousin’s identification.
