Considering BRCA Testing?

anastaisa99

Long story short my maternal Grandmother is believed to be of Ashkenazi Jewish decent. My Great Grandma died from colon cancer and out of her eight kids two had colon cancer and two had breast cancer. My Grandma was one of the ones with colon. My Mom is her only daughter and at the age of 63 she has only had pre cancerous cervical cells, no breast or colon cancer. I have read on the NCI website that breast, colon, cervical and uterine are related to mutations in the BRCA1 gene. I am just wondering why they don't normally include those in family history risk for breast. Also if anyone out there with a similar family history and chose to get tested? At this point any testing I did would be for my daughter as I am being watched because of a benign breast condition. I would love to hear your experience and what helped you consider this test?Thank you !

DiveCat

You should make an appointment with a genetic counselor. They will take into account other potentially BRCA-related cancers (all cancers, actually) and your Jewish heritage, and will also discuss best person to test (if your mother is negative for example, then no need to test you unless your paternal history also has factors). I have not heard so much of cervical or uterine cancer being related (not saying they aren't, just had not come across that before in my many looks at BRCA!), but certainly there is links to colorectal, pancreatic, ovarian, prostrate, etc. So yes, please see a genetic counselor (one familiar with cancer/BRCA genetics) as they DO look at these issues.



My history is different...small family but my mother, maternal grandmother, and two maternal great-grandmothers (one also had colon) all are known to have had or died of breast cancer. I otherwise have a male-dominated family and no male breast cancer, etc. One case of prostate cancer in a younger person. No Jewish history that I know of, but I fit criteria for testing to get it covered by universal healthcare. Problem is they would prefer to test my affected relative (mother) first to give certainty to results (rather than risk being an uninformed negative and still having no answer). My mother is not interested so I am going to keep pushing for me, and eventually consider paying for it.



I am still considered high risk at this point though (3-4x average risk) due to history, and only a "true negative" (if my mother was positive and I was negative) would take me down to average risk.