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Henry T. Lynch remembered the patient whose history had helped to persuade him – despite the general doubt that prevailed at the time – in the medical establishment of the time – that there must be some hereditary element in certain forms. of cancer.
The man was an alcoholic admitted to the Omaha hospital where Dr. Lynch was a resident physician in 1962. "All of his family had died of colon cancer," recalls Dr. Lynch. "That's why he drank. He was convinced that he was going to die.
The family of this patient was one of 3,000 families from around the world – Nebraska farming communities in the Middle East – that Dr. Lynch studied during her nearly six-year career, thoroughly mapping the spread of cancer through the branches of the family tree. and over generations.
Years before the advent of genetic tests that later proved his theories, such hand-made family histories allowed Dr. Lynch to identify hereditary links to certain types of colon cancer, breast cancer, and breast cancer. ovary and other forms of the disease.
Recognized as the father of cancer genetics, he has saved thousands of lives by promoting screening practices that help doctors detect cancer at an early stage, as well as preventative surgeries that in some cases prevent the onset of the disease. . Anyone who has had a physical examination and completed a Family History Questionnaire for Cancer is the recipient of their research.
Dr. Lynch died on June 2 at an Omaha Palliative Care Center, at the age of 91. His death was announced by the Creighton University of Omaha, where he spent most of his career and founded the Hereditary Cancer Center in 1984. The cause was congestive heart failure, said his son. , Patrick Lynch.
"Henry Lynch holds a distinguished place in the pantheon of the greatest cancer breeders of the modern era," said Kenneth Offit, head of the Clinical Genetics Department at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York, in an interview. "He defined the hereditary basis of common human cancers at a time when these ideas were considered heretical and where he lived so that the genetic underpinnings of cancers were an integral part of the practice of preventive medicine."
Dr. Lynch has taken a back-and-forth in the annals of medicine. Born to what he described at the Omaha World-Herald as a "depressed Irish" family, he grew up in a harsh New York neighborhood and lied about his age to join the Navy at the same time. 39, age 15 or 16 years old. (The accounts vary.)
He served in the South Pacific during the Second World War before becoming a fighter known as "Hammerin 'Hank" at six and a half. After obtaining a bachelor's degree equivalence, he pursued a university degree leading to a degree in medicine.
When Dr. Lynch began his career, most scientists attributed cancer to environmental causes, such as the presence of carcinogenic chemicals and viruses. Hereditary explanations were rejected or even rejected. Some doctors feared that if patients learned that cancer was prevalent in their family, they would resign themselves to what they perceived as their fate and opposed lifestyle changes such as quitting or adopting a lifestyle change. healthier diet.
"Nobody believed me," Dr. Lynch later said, according to Creighton University. "But I knew we had something here. I knew we could potentially save lives. "
Dr. Lynch was awarded in the 1960s the first comprehensive description of hereditary non-polyposis colorectal cancer, a form of colon cancer that has been renamed Lynch Syndrome. Patients with Lynch syndrome also have an increased risk of endometrial cancer, ovaries, stomach, pancreas and other forms.
In 1971, he identified a hereditary form of breast and ovarian cancers, which in the 1990s was linked to the BRCA genes.
Recent research has shown that up to 10% of cancers are inherited, said Sapna Syngal, founder of the all-new Lynch Syndrome Center, created at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston, describing Dr. Lynch as a " visionary "endowed something that no one else [knew]. But in the early critical years of his career, he often struggled to secure funds for his radical research.
He attributed his resistance, at least in part, to the "detriment of the great institutions of the East Coast against a small university in the center-west that challenged orthodoxy," wrote David Cantor, a historian of medicine, in the journal Medical History. But no matter how far away from major research institutions, its Nebraska community had advantages.
Rural families in Nebraska "have kept accurate records of their families" and have rarely moved away from their communities, even from generation to generation, Cantor noted. In addition, they had what Dr. Lynch called a "deep-rooted tradition and pioneering philosophy to support worthwhile activities."
"The critics may have scorned Nebraska," Cantor observed, "but Nebraska had to save Lynch."
Dr. Lynch led the family's medical history with obsessive dedication, calling meetings and going door-to-door to find loved ones. He then explored family Bibles, medical records, autopsy records and census data. The result of his efforts is one of the largest databases on the history of family cancer in the world.
In addition to colon, breast and ovarian cancers, Dr. Lynch has documented hereditary forms of melanoma and cancers of the prostate and pancreas.
He encouraged early detection techniques, such as frequent colonoscopies in patients with Lynch syndrome, as well as preventive mastectomies and ovoprotectes, or removal of ovaries, in some patients with cancer. breast cancer or hereditary ovarian cancer. The actress Angelina Jolie has largely drawn attention to such procedures when she announced in 2013 that she was carrying a BRCA1 gene mutation and that she had undergone a preventive mastectomy .
"In these families," said Offit, "preventive surgeries save lives."
Henry Thompson Lynch was born in Lawrence, Massachusetts on January 4, 1928 and raised in New York, where he honed his boxing skills.
After giving up his post-war fighter career – he "did not have the stamina to be a serious boxer," said his son – he earned a bachelor's degree from the US. University of Oklahoma in 1951 and a Masters in Clinical Psychology from the University of Denver in 1952.
He began a Ph.D. in Human Genetics at the University of Texas at Austin before moving on to the Medical Branch of the University of Texas at Galveston, where he graduated with a degree in Medicine in 1960. He joined Creighton in 1967.
The former Jane Smith, Dr. Lynch's wife for 60 years and a psychiatric nurse who helped her in her research, died in 2012. Three survivors are survivors: Patrick Lynch of Houston, Kathy Pinder of Corona, California and Ann Kelly from Redondo. Beach, California .; two brothers; 10 grandchildren; and nine great-grandchildren.
When Dr. Lynch advised families affected by cancer at a high incidence, he sought to quell their anxieties and fears, pointing out that early detection of the disease could save their lives. He took phone calls and requests from patients around the world, often going to work at 3:30 am for the most comprehensive day of research.
In the 1980s, Dr. Lynch, according to his university, was seriously injured on the back but had refused to cancel a conference. An assistant rolled him into the classroom on a cart so he could talk to the students.
An earlier version of this obituary incorrectly reported that actress Angelina Jolie underwent a preventive mastectomy because she had the BRCA1 gene. She underwent the procedure because she carries a mutation of the BRCA1 gene.
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