You are in > manchester.com  > News > Test for breast cancer 'on the horizon'

Health

Test for breast cancer 'on the horizon'

26/06/2008

Women could be offered a genetic test to work out their risk of breast cancer in just a few years, a new study claims today.

Such tests could help to highlight women who would benefit from regular screening and who should be given lifestyle advice to reduce their risk of developing the disease.

At present doctors only test women who have a very strong family history of breast cancer for the high-risk breast cancer genes.

But these gene faults are rare and few women in the general population will benefit from such testing.

Scientists at the University of Cambridge studied the seven 'modest risk' gene sites, which, in combination, put women at increased risk of developing breast cancer.

Their findings, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, suggest that testing for their combination could prove useful.

Study author Dr Paul Pharoah said: "We are a few years away from a new and powerful range of genetic tests for breast cancer.

"We believe genetic testing has the potential to enable doctors to identify a woman at an increased risk of breast cancer who would benefit from mammography at an early age or woman who may benefit from regular MRI scanning as well.

"This approach would also identify a 55 year old woman with a low chance of breast cancer who possibly wouldn't need such regular checks."

Commenting on the research, Dr Lesley Walker, director of cancer information at Cancer Research UK said: "This study marks the potential for a tailor-made approach to screening for breast cancer which could radically change who we target and how we detect early signs of the disease.

"Great progress has been made to improve our understanding of the ways in which certain genes affect the risk of breast cancer - and as scientists find even more of these 'risk genes', our ability to use genetic tests to identify woman at risk will improve.

"But there is still some way to go before this kind of profiling becomes a reality."