Launch of new guide to family history of breast cancer
The UK charity Breakthrough Breast Cancer has launched a definitive guide for people with an increased risk of developing breast cancer due to their family history.
The guide provides, for the first time, information on national standards for services and care for people who have a suspected or confirmed family history of breast cancer, in one single, accessible place. It combines expert advice from professionals as well as experiences from women with a family history of breast cancer. It allows both men and women to have a wider understanding of their risk of familial breast cancer and help them navigate the NHS services available to them.
A family history of breast cancer means having an unusually high number of close relatives with the disease or some other form of cancer, such as ovarian. Having a family history of breast cancer means that you may be more likely to develop the disease, and at a younger age, compared with the general population.
About 1 in 20 breast cancers are associated with inherited faults in breast cancer genes such as BRCA1 and BRCA2. People with these inherited faults tend to have a particularly strong family history of breast cancer. Generally speaking, a family history that may suggest a link to a faulty gene means having:
- Two close family members (including, for example, mother, daughter, sister, grandmother or aunt) diagnosed with breast cancer under the age of 50
- Or three close family members under 60
- Or four close family members of any age
The guide is available free from breakthrough.org.uk/publications
Sounds like a very useful guide
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The guide is useful up until the point where the cancer treatment is finished. What someone really needs to come up with is guidelines for those of us who are BRAC positive and have had all the recommended surgeries and chemo treatments. There are no follow-up guidelines for those of us at high risk.
Do we need a yearly PET scan? CT? MRI? Bone scan? Wait and see? How about blood tests?
As someone who comes from a family where EVERY woman has died of breast/ovarian cancer, I’m just a little nervous about this whole reccurance thing. I would sure like some guidelines on follow-up testing.
Thanks for your post,
Dianne Duffy
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Hi Dianne, i really appreciate you taking the time to leave this comment and I wish there was something more practical I could tell you. I will certainly keep your question in mind at the forthcoming conferences I will be attending in 2011 and I will get back to you should I learn anything which may be of help to you. In the meantime, wishing you well. Marie
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Am not familiar enough with this to comment on Dianne’s point, but want to say well done Dianne for making it and I hope you get the answers you are looking for.
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Marie,
As a BRCA 2 person this is great news. I do agree with Diane, I wish there was some additional followup available after treatment. I feel like I’m just supposed to wait and see what happens… I do feel like I’m going to be left “dangling in the wind” a bit, but maybe all of us feel that way…
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