5 October 2011
Simplest steps matter most in breast cancer prevention
If you do nothing else this Breast Cancer Action Month, ask some questions.
That’s the advice from The Gift of Knowledge, a not for profit organisation established to raise awareness and support
those impacted by a genetic predisposition to breast and ovarian cancer.
“For all the fancy medical equipment and sophisticated tests and treatments that exist, the most powerful thing that
women can do to save their own lives – or the lives of others in their families – is to ask relatives questions about
their family medical history, and ask questions about their specific risk factors of their GPs and other medical staff
they come into contact with.”
“All of those wonderful advances in science and medical expertise lie dormant until you’ve asked ‘does this need looking
at? Or even if you’re well – ‘does my family history need looking at?’
Recent research suggests that women with a predisposition to breast and ovarian cancer (BRCA gene mutation) are being
diagnosed with breast cancer almost 8 years earlier than the generation before them.
Hereditary breast cancers can strike women as young as twenty and thirty. Often they are more aggressive and faster
growing.
“What is exciting now is that those with a pre disposition to breast cancer have choices,” Nicola says, “At 33 I chose
to remove my breasts, it was the best choice for me. I reduced my risk from approximately 85% to 2%. It’s not for
everyone though. What is important is that those at high risk know they are at risk and educate themselves so they can
make choices that are right for them. Once you know you’re at high risk you can make decisions that could literally save
your life. Some women choose intensive surveillance, often a mix of regular MRIs and mammograms. Others choose to remove
their breast tissue altogether, and to reconstruct or not. “
For close families where breast cancer runs rife, the evidence is right in front of them. In others, the picture may not
be so clear, for a number of reasons.
“People still don’t like to talk about cancer. You still find families where the word can barely be spoken, or where
it’s just not talked about at all. In others, it is considered such a private thing, that it is kept within the confines
of the immediate family, so the extended family can often be unaware that somebody has been diagnosed or is undergoing
treatment. Asking the questions can be hard – but it can also save not just your life, but that of others in your
family, too.”
Through The Gift of Knowledge, Nicola hears all too often of people who suspect or know that their family breast cancer
history may contain some worrying trends – but don’t raise it with their GP. They either put it on the ‘to do’ list and
don’t get around to it, forget about it or prefer not to know. “Its devastating when these people contact me and say I
wish I had acted on it earlier. I always wish they had, too”.
“We’re all so mobile these days, it’s often the exception now to see a doctor who has been with your family all the way
through and has the knowledge and generations worth of notes. It’s up to us to take responsibility for our own
histories, and make sure that they end up in our files. Many of the red flags that come with genetic cancers will only
come once there is a suspicion that something is wrong. So much can be done to lower somebody’s risk of developing
invasive cancer before that point, and that’s what we’re particularly interested in.”
Only five to ten percent of all breast cancers can be explained by genetics. For those women, knowledge really is power.
When to ask questions:
Every woman should know or find out whether breast cancer alone or breast and ovarian cancer together, are common in
their family. Family patterns that are worth digging more deeply into include having three or more blood relatives on
the same side with breast or ovarian cancer, or two or more blood relatives on the same side with breast or ovarian
cancer, plus one of the following:
•breast and ovarian cancer in the same person
•two or more close blood relatives on one side of the family (mother’s or father’s) with breast or ovarian cancer
•breast cancer before age 40
•ovarian cancer before age 50
•breast cancer in both breasts
•breast cancer in a male relative
•Jewish ancestory
•Any blood relative with a BRCA mutation
ENDS