Basal-cell carcinoma
Basal-cell cancer is a very common skin cancer. It is much more common in fair-skinned individuals with a family history of basal-cell cancer and increases in incidence closer to the equator or at higher altitude. There are approximately 800,000 new cases yearly in the United States alone. Up to 30% of Caucasians develop basal-cell carcinomas in their lifetime. In Canada, the most common skin cancer is basal-cell carcinoma (as much as one third of all cancer diagnoses), affecting 1 in 7 individuals over a lifetime.
Beckwith–Wiedemann syndrome
Most children (>80%) with BWS do not develop cancer; however, children with BWS are much more likely (~600 times more) than other children to develop certain childhood cancers, particularly Wilms' tumor (nephroblastoma), pancreatoblastoma and hepatoblastoma. Individuals with BWS appear to only be at increased risk for cancer during childhood (especially before age four) and do not have an increased risk of developing cancer in adulthood. If 100 children with BWS were followed from birth until age ten, about 10 cases of cancer would be expected in the group before age four, and about 1 case of cancer in the group would be expected between age four and ten.
In addition to Wilms tumor and hepatoblastoma, children with BWS have been shown in individual case reports to develop ganglioneuroma, adrenocortical carcinoma, acute lymphoid leukemia, liver sarcoma, thyroid carcinoma, melanoma, rhabdomyosarcoma, and mesoblastic nephroma.