Loading...
Several studies have addressed risk for breast cancer (BC) and ovarian cancer (OC) in BRCA1 and BRCA2 carriers, but most have been retrospective, yielding large variations in estimated risks. Now, U.K. investigators have conducted a large, prospective study of risk for BC and OC in a cohort of 978 BRCA1 carriers and 909 BRCA2 carriers. Several single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) affect breast cancer risk. Eleven of these were selected and risk scores were calculated for BRCA1 and BRCA2 carriers.
Among BRCA1 carriers, average cumulative risk by age 70 was 60% for BC, 83% for contralateral BC, and 59% for OC. In BRCA2 carriers, cumulative risks were 55% for BC, 62% for contralateral BC, and 16% for OC. BC incidence peaked at age 50 to 59 in…