Over the last few years, excitement over this class of agents has escalated due to reported activity as single agent in BRCA1- or BRCA2-associated ovarian or breast cancers, and in combination with chemotherapy in triple negative breast cancer.
The average cumulative breast cancer risk by age 70 years was estimated to be 45% (95% CI 36 to 52%) for BRCA1 and 27% (95% CI 14 to 38%) for BRCA2 mutation carriers.
Allelic losses in the BRCA1 and BRCA2 loci have also been detected in a high proportion of sporadic breast tumors, suggesting the role of these genes in the development of non-inherited breast cancer.
For BRCA2 mutation carriers, use of oral contraceptives may be associated with an increased risk of breast cancer among women who use them for at least 5 years.
Approximately 5% of all breast cancers are due to one of the high-risk breast cancer genes BRCA1 and BRCA2, or possibly to a third or fourth moderate- to high-risk gene(s).
Individuals who inherit a deleterious mutation in BRCA1 or BRCA2 are at very high risk for breast cancer but there are several strategies available for successfully managing this risk.
The breast cancer susceptibility gene BRCA2 is expressed in a wide range of tissues as an 11-kb mRNA transcript that encodes a 3418-amino acid protein involved in the response to DNA damage.
The discovery of the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes has explained some of the genetic determinants of breast cancer risk, but these genes alone do not explain all of the familial aggregation of breast cancer.
BRCA1 BC patients as compared to BRCA2BC patients had a higher risk of BC relapse or non-breast cancer within ten years of follow-up, independent of ER status (adjusted HR 2.78 95% CI 1.28-6.05, p = .01), but BRCA mutation was not associated with OS (adjusted HR 1.98, 95% CI 0.87-4.52, p = .10).
We report a family in which three brothers with breast cancer carry in their germ line two genetic abnormalities: an insertion A at nucleotide 2041 in exon 10 of BRCA2, which leads to premature termination of the encoded protein at codon 615, and a tandem interstitial duplication involving chromosome bands 9p23-24.
A phenotypic characterization of the cancer families based on pathogenic mutation status revealed that there were significantly fewer very young age at diagnosis breast cancer cases (<36 years) in mutation-negative families (5.9%, 9 of 153) than in BRCA1 (22.8%, 13 of 57; P = 0.0003) or BRCA2 (22.9%, 27 of 118; P < 1× 10E5) mutation-positive families.
We identified a patient of Ashkenazi Jewish heritage with germ-line heterozygous mutations in both BRCA1 (5382insC) and BRCA2 (6174delT), who had developed three independent breast cancers by age 47.
There was no evidence of an association between breast cancer risk and age at first birth for parous BRCA1 or BRCA2 mutation carriers (P-trend >or= 0.3).
The requests were constructed in order to illustrate a high genetic risk for (a) colorectal (HNPCC) and (b) breast cancer (BRCAI/BRCA2), respectively.Nine out of 11 insurers responded.
The discovery of the breast cancer genes BRCA1 and BRCA2 has afforded those who seek breast and ovarian cancer risk counseling the option of genetic testing.
Ovarian, colorectal, stomach, pancreatic, and prostate cancer occurred among first-degree relatives of carriers of BRCA2 mutations only when mutations were in the ovarian cancer-cluster region (OCCR) of exon 11, whereas an excess of breast cancer was seen when mutations were outside the OCCR.
We investigated the effect of a BRCA1 or BRCA2 mutation and age on the growth rate of breast cancers, as this may influence the optimal screening frequency.