Breast cancer patients with BRCA mutations 4 times more likely to get cancer in opposite breast
Monday, April 5, 2010 - 16:14
in Health & Medicine
Women with breast cancer before age 55 who carry an inherited mutation in the breast cancer susceptibility genes BRCA1 or BRCA2 are four times more likely to develop cancer in the breast opposite, or contralateral, to their initial tumor as compared to breast cancer patients without these genetic defects. These findings, by Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center breast cancer epidemiologist Kathleen Malone, Ph.D., and colleagues, were published online April 5 in the Journal of Clinical Oncology.