Women W/ Gene Mutation Have Same/Better Survival as Women W/o

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Moderators
Moderators Member Posts: 25,912
edited September 2021 in Genetic Testing

Women With Breast Cancer Gene Mutation Have Same or Better Survival as Women Without Mutation
September 8, 2021
Women with a genetic mutation linked to a higher cancer risk who are diagnosed with breast cancer or ovarian cancer and receive chemotherapy treatment have the same or better survival rates as women who don't have a genetic mutation linked to higher risk. Read more...

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  • Aram
    Aram Member Posts: 417
    edited September 2021

    Thank you. What does below sentence mean? Does it mean women with BRCA1 are the only group who do not have better survival than those without mutation?

    • women diagnosed with ovarian cancer who had a BRCA2 mutation or a mutation other than BRCA1 or BRCA2 had better survival rates than women without a genetic mutation
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  • Jelson
    Jelson Member Posts: 1,535
    edited September 2021

    your cited statement is weird, might be a typo on the part of BCO because it is their summary of the study. The final quote from the study appears to apply to all mutations. Read the study and report back to Moderators.

    "This is reassuring. Patients often worry that having inherited genetic risk means they are more likely to die of their cancer. Instead, they are less likely to die," said lead study author Allison Kurian, M.D., MSc, professor of medicine and epidemiology and population health at Stanford University School of Medicine, in a statement.

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  • 2019whatayear
    2019whatayear Member Posts: 767
    edited September 2021

    Aram yes it means that BRCA1 people w/ovarian cancer don't have *better* survival than people w/o a known mutation. They have the *same* survival as those w/o a known mutation. Which I think was not the conventional wisdom in the past. Also parps are approved for maintenance for OC cancer patients, so those w/a BRCA1 mutation get that added benefit. (not that parps are a walk in the park, but bettering the odds is worth it since OC reccurs often)

    Overall in each case known germline mutation people had better or the same survival as those w/o known mutations and they believe that is because of chemo the pathogenic mutations are very sensitive to being crushed by chemo. So it's really important for mutants to get chemo in most cases.

    :-) This is a really positive study IMO for people like me, thanks Mods for sharing!


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  • Aram
    Aram Member Posts: 417
    edited September 2021

    Jeldon, I believe it could have been written better.

    2019whatayear, my understanding was the same as you wrote but still it is a weird way of writing it, so I wanted to make sure by asking the moderators.

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  • Moderators
    Moderators Member Posts: 25,912
    edited September 2021

    Hi Aram and all,

    We reached out to our editorial team for some clarification. This was their response:

    Thanks for your question. The bullet point means that women diagnosed with ovarian cancer with a BRCA2, or another mutation that is not BRCA1 or BRCA2, had better survival rates than women in the general population diagnosed with ovarian cancer who did not have a genetic mutation linked to a higher risk of cancer.

    It does NOT mean that women with a BRCA1 mutation had worse survival than women without a mutation. It means they had the same survival as women without a mutation because, overall, the researchers found that NONE of the genetic mutations linked to a higher risk of cancer were linked to worse cancer survival.

    We hope that helps!

    --The Mods

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