We evaluated 241 consecutive women with a BRCA1 or BRCA2 mutation who were enrolled in the surveillance program for hereditary ovarian cancer from September 1995 until May 2006 at the University Medical Center Groningen (UMCG), The Netherlands.
In a population well beyond the average age of breast/ovarian cancer onset, 21 different sequence variants in the BRCA1 gene (one novel: c.5193+49_50delTA) and 36 variants in the BRCA2 gene (7 novel: c.459A>C, c.3318C>A, c.4412_ 4414delGAA, c.4790C>A, c.6264T>C, c.9087G>A, and c.9864A>G) were detected.
Patients with hereditary breast/ovarian cancer resulting from a BRCA2 mutation have been conclusively shown to have a worse survival prognosis compared to the non mutated group of patients.
In a nationwide case-control study on OvC conducted in Israel between 1994 and 1999, 779 Jewish women with epithelial invasive OvC were tested for the three Ashkenazi Jewish founder mutations in BRCA1 (185delAG; 5382insC) and BRCA2 (6174delT) genes and followed for survival up to 2003.
Subsequent compilation of our present findings with previously reported mutation data reveals that in a total of 287 Greek breast/ovarian cancer families, 46 and 13 carry a deleterious mutation in BRCA1 and BRCA2, respectively.
These data may have a significant effect on risk assessment and clinical management of individuals from Denmark who are predisposed to ovarian cancer because they carry a BRCA1 or BRCA2 mutation.
Kaplan-Meier analysis revealed a better long-term survival from early-stage ovarian cancer in BRCA2 carriers but no significant differences in deaths from breast cancer or from women presenting with late-stage ovarian cancer.
Among carriers of BRCA1 or BRCA2 mutations, the cumulative lifetime risk of developing breast cancer is 50-60% and the equivalent risk of ovarian cancer is 20-40%.
We would like to highlight the fact that 14.3% of patients with 3 or more cases of breast cancer in the family, and 16.7% of patients with family history of breast and ovarian cancer, present a pathological mutation in BRCA1 or BRCA2.
Here we screened a cohort of 112 consecutive Italian families at moderate-to-high risk for breast and/or ovarian cancer for BRCA1 and BRCA2 point mutations and genomic rearrangements.
The ovarian epithelial cells carrying heterozygous BRCA1 or BRCA2 mutation (we called BRCA1/2 mutation) are known to predispose to the development of ovarian cancer; however, the molecular basis of such predisposition is largely unknown.
This screen also provides further evidence for the presumption that the majority of Finnish BRCA1/BRCA2 founder mutations have been found and that the proportion of BRCA1/BRCA2 mutations in Finnish breast/ovarian cancer families is around 20%.
We describe a family with multiple cases of MEN1-associated cancers as well as pancreatic adenocarcinoma, ovarian cancer, and male breast cancer, in which we identified germline mutations in both MEN1 and BRCA2.