I'm wondering how I would request a BRCA gene test? My great grandmother passed away from breast cancer as did my grandmother and my mum has just recent been diagnosed with it. Would this be enough for them to take me seriously?
I am sorry to hear about both your grandmother and mum having breast cancer and appreciate you are now worried about your own risk.
These days patients who are diagnosed with breast cancer will have their own family history assessed by their specialist team and if the doctors think there could be a possibility of an inherited gene fault they will go on to be tested for BRCA. Therefore I would discuss this with your mum to find out what they may have said about this.
When cancer is in the family, people often assume that this greatly increases their risk of developing it, but this isn't necessarily so. Although the genes we inherit may influence our risk, other things do as well. No one is risk free and the risk of breast cancer increases for all women as we get older.
Breast cancer risks and causes are explained on our website at this link. You will see that a family history can increase the risk of breast cancer but not always by very much. This can depend on how close the affected relatives were and how young they were when they developed the cancer. Breast cancer is common anyway, 1 in 8 women develop breast cancer over their lifetime, but mostly at an older age (above 50).
So, we all carry some degree of ‘population' risk. In the UK, routine breast screening starts from 50 for most of us although there is a study asking some women from the age of 47. Some women whose risk is above average can start screening sooner, but only a very few women are offered it in their thirties.
It is worth reading the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) guidance for women with breast cancer in the family. You can find this here.
Talk to your mum to find out more and if there is found to be an increased risk for yourself you can then discuss this with your GP who can refer you to the genetics team if appropriate.
Please do get back to us if you have any more questions or give us a call us on 0808 800 4040. We are here from Monday to Friday, 9am to 5pm.
