Close Relatives of Women With Early Onset Breast Cancer Need to be Cautious

A recent insight has revealed that breast cancer risk is high among close relatives of women diagnosed with early onset breast cancer, which is cancer before the age of 35 years.

Professor John Hopper, Director of Research from the Centre for Molecular, Environmental, Genetic and Analytic Epidemiology at the University of Melbourne, Australia, a lead investigator in the study, said these are surprising and novel findings which could be pointing to the existence of a new cancer genetic syndrome.

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Breast cancer is a cancer that affects the breasts or mammary glands. Early detection and lifestyle changes help in controlling breast cancer.

"The results suggest there could possibly be undiscovered genes causing breast cancer in these young women, and perhaps other cancers in their families," Professor Hopper said.

Every year in Australia, more than 300 women are diagnosed with breast cancer before the age of 35 years. This is approximately one in 40 of all breast cancers.

In the largest population based study of its kind, scientists studied 2200 parents and siblings of 500 women diagnosed with breast cancer before the age of 35 from across three countries, Australia, Canada and the United States.

About Cancer in Women
Cancer is one of the frequently talked about and most feared disease that falls under the genre of lifestyle diseases that have evolved, rather rapidly, in the past two decades.

After excluding families with mutations in BRCA1 and BRCA2, the two known major breast cancer susceptibility genes, they found that close relatives were at increased risk of not only breast cancer, but also of cancers of the prostate, lung, brain and urinary tract.

The results showed:

Fathers and brothers had a 5-fold increased risk of prostate cancer.
Mothers and sisters had a 2-fold increased risk of ovarian cancer as well as a 4-fold increased risk of breast cancer
Close relatives also had a 3-fold increased risk for brain cancer, an 8-fold increased risk for lung cancer, and a 4-fold increased risk for urinary tract cancers.

Breast Cancer - Prevention and Management with Lifestyle Changes
Lifestyle choices may or may not cause breast cancer but healthy lifestyle changes can open up avenues beyond breast cancer. Good habits will allow one to fight breast cancer and to live with dignity.

"We wanted to find out what caused the early onset of breast cancer in these women and found some results we weren't expecting regarding their relatives," Professor Hopper said.

"The results of this study could help scientists discover new cancer susceptibility genes that explain the risk of early-onset and other cancers within some families," he said.

Breast Lumps
Most breast lumps are caused by hormonal changes in a woman and may not be cancerous. Common causes of breast lumps include fibroadenosis, breast cancer, breast cyst.

"Our next step is to conduct larger studies to further clarify these results."

Source-Eurekalert