Almost 200,000 women develop breast cancer each year. Today, a new study offers some reassuring news for women who have a heredity form of the disease.
Many women with a genetic link to breast cancer worry that if they get the disease it will more lethal, but new research shows that's not the case.
"Given that I had the gene, I had a bilateral mastectomy," said Rivka From, a breast cancer survivor.
The BRCA gene mutation is a known risk factor for breast cancer, but whether or not the genetic variation affects survival has not been clear.
"Women with mutations have a lot to deal with and they're always worried that their breast cancers when they are found will somehow be more lethal," said Dr. Judy Garber, of the Dana Farber Cancer Institute.
New research may ease those worries. A study that included more than 1,500 breast cancer patients in Israel, where the gene is more common, finds similar survival rates among breast cancer patients with BRCA mutations and those without the genetic connection.
"The good news here is if you have breast cancer and a mutation this is not necessarily the death sentence that you fear," said Dr. Garber.
The findings also suggest chemotherapy may be slightly more effective in patients with BRCA-1 mutations. Researchers stress that more work is needed to fully understand the genetic impact.
"Oh there's a lot of to learn still," said Dr. Garber. "We can't tell a woman who has a mutation when in her lifetime her breast cancer might develop or whether it ever will."
For gene carriers who do develop the disease this latest research brings some reassurance that the gene that increased their risk won't impact their chances of beating it.
About 10-15 percent of all breast cancers are inherited, but only about percent are linked to the BRCA gene. The research is reported in the New England Journal of Medicine.
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