Your support helps us know more about breast cancer
 Jeffrey Weitzel,, M.D. leads a team that's unlocking cancer's secrets. |
City of Hope researchers are challenging the traditional wisdom of who should be tested for cancer genes. New evidence suggests women who have breast cancer before age 50 and who have few female relatives on one side of their family tree should be considered candidates for genetic testing.This finding, published in the June 20 issue of the prestigious Journal of the American Medical Association, challenges the accuracy of some breast cancer prediction models that do not take family structure into account.
So what does this mean for you and the women in your family?
The researchers, led by Jeffrey Weitzel, M.D., director of City of Hope's department of clinical cancer genetics, found that women who had early breast cancer and no close female relative who lived past age 45 on either their mother or father's side, were more likely to carry the genes for breast cancer.
"Genetic testing may be a valuable tool for women with early-onset breast cancer to determine if a genetic mutation contributed to their cancer," Weitzel said.
"Armed with that knowledge, they can take steps to prevent second occurrences of breast cancer or ovarian cancer."
For more information about the breast cancer programs your kindness makes possible at City of Hope, including ways to tell if you or someone you love is at risk, visit www.cityofhope.org/BreastCancer/.