New Findings on Surgery for Women With Cancer Genes

21 September 2010

Preventative surgery was already known to reduce the risk of ovarian and breast cancer in women with the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes

This is the VOA Special English Health Report.

Every year, one million women around the world are found to have breast cancer. Almost two hundred thousand others are told they have ovarian cancer.

The decisions for treatment are more difficult when the women have abnormal versions of two genes called BRCA1 and BRCA2. The mutations in these genes can increase the risk for other kinds of cancer, including cancer of the cervix, uterus and pancreas.

SANDRA COHEN: "It’s kinds of like you are sitting on a time bomb waiting for cancer to occur, and it really does a number on you mentally to deal with that every single day."

Sandra Cohen has never had breast cancer or ovarian cancer. But she has the BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutations. So she decided to have doctors remove her breasts and ovaries. She made the decision after her mother and grandmother both died from the same kind of cancers.

Doctors have known for several years that preventative surgery reduces the risk of ovarian and breast cancer for women with the mutations. But a new study also shows that these operations help those patients live longer.

The four-year study involved about two thousand five hundred women with the genetic mutations.