Cancer Treatment Today

BREVAGen evaluates 7 breast cancer-associated SNPs identified in genome-wide association studies (GWAS). Risk is calculated by multiplying the product of the individual SNP risks by the Gail model risk. BREVAGen has been evaluated for use in Caucasian women of European descent age 35 years and older. According to the BREVAGen website, “suitable candidates” for testing include women with a Gail lifetime risk of 15% or greater; with high lifetime

Lay Summary: Testing for the colon cancer gene and its role and appropriate use is described. Hereditary nonpolyposis colorectal cancer (HNPCC) usually occurs in patients younger than age 45 and can result in the development of cancers in a variety of tissues, such as the colon, rectum, endometrium, stomach, ovaries, brain, and skin. A major genetic characteristic of HNPCC tumors is microsatellite instability (MSI). Microsatellites are short repeated

Prophylactic total or simple mastectomy, not subcutaneous mastectomy, for patients at high risk of breast cancer is a difficult issue in that it involves the determination of risk in an individual patient, a separate determination of what level of risk is high enough to justify the extreme choice of prophylactic mastectomy, and assurance from scientific studies in the medical literature that this procedure does result in a reduction of breast cancer