Can you catch a tumor from someone else that has one? No, you cannot catch a tumor from anyone else. Tumors cannot be spread from person to person. If your parent or brother/sister has a tumor, it does not mean that you will get one. Most tumors occur because of changes in brain cells which make them grow faster than they should. Very rarely, there are families that have many family members with tumors. The people in these families usually have abnormal genes (the building blocks of our cells) which make tumors more likely to grow. The vast majority of brain tumors just happen, but do not run in families. Answered by Dr. Herbert Fuchs, pediatric neurosurgeon, Duke University, Durham July, 2007