Family With CDH1 Gene Navigates Cancer Risk & Treatment

By City of Hope

After losing both parents to cancer and discovering a deadly genetic mutation,

Elizabeth Sowers is taking bold, lifesaving steps to rewrite her fate.

"There's not a single thing I won't do to save my life."

Elizabeth Sowers, a 43-year-old sociology professor from Camarillo, California, speaks with a "get it done" attitude that she may have inherited from her father.

"He was a tough, formidable guy," she recalled, "6-foot-2, 200 pounds, fond of saying 'Life's not fair. Get over it!'"

Sowers’ mom and dad presided over what she calls "the world's greatest family," which includes an older sister, Anne, and a pair of younger twin brothers. She remembers growing up as a self-proclaimed nerd who took ballet and cheerleading. She is especially close to Anne — they're two years apart but "we're the real twins!" she says, laughing.

Sowers remembers one day in particular that felt especially blissful.

"My college graduation in 2003. I'm 20, I have my whole life ahead of me, everyone in the family is alive and well, no cancer anywhere..." her voice trails off.

"I think about that day a lot."

In 2007, Sowers’ father mysteriously got sick. He was initially diagnosed with colon cancer, requiring surgery. Barely two years later, a host of new and perplexing symptoms appeared. He lost half his body weight, and his abdomen would regularly swell with fluid.

Scans detected no tumors, so doctors tried exploratory surgery, where they discovered, to their horror, "cancer everywhere." He died two days later. Was he misdiagnosed? No one could say.

Sowers was shattered by the sudden loss of her father and the doctors' apparent cluelessness. "It's hard to have faith in science when that happens," she said.

Then, in 2022, Sowers’ mother developed stage 4 glioblastoma, an aggressive brain cancer, which took her life 14 months later. At almost the same time, her sister, Anne, was diagnosed with breast cancer.

It was too much for Sowers to bear. "My life was falling apart," she recalled. "It was devastating to watch what happened to both my parents; they were such tremendous human beings. And then my sister..."

But her sister's cancer also set off warning alarms. Anne's doctors, who'd known about Dad's illness, did not believe the two diagnoses were merely a sad coincidence. They recommended genetic screening.

The results could not have been worse.

[Read Elizabeth's full story here]