Editor—Approximately 10% of gastric cancers show familial clustering and case control studies have identified a threefold increased risk of the disease in the first degree relatives of affected subjects.1 Gastric cancer susceptibility is a well recognised feature of hereditary non-polyposis colorectal cancer syndrome and may be associated with familial polyposis coli, Peutz-Jeghers syndrome, and germlinep53 mutations.1 2 In addition, germline E-cadherin gene (CDH1) mutations cause familial diffuse gastric cancer.3-5 However, most familial gastric cancer patients do not have germline CDH1mutations.1 6 Very recently, Lee et al 7 described a germlineMET mutation (P1009S) in a patient with primary gastric cancer, although no detailed family history was available. In contrast with MET gene mutations in the tyrosine kinase domain, which are associated with hereditary type 1 papillary renal cell carcinoma …