Gene hope for women

Cancer markers not a death sentence

AUSTRALIANS are surviving to a healthy old age despite having genes that cause cancer or heart disease, a breakthrough study has found.

It means women with genes linked to breast and ovarian cancer like Angelina Jolie may be having breasts and reproductive organs removed to prevent a cancer they may never develop.

They may live a long life because they have other protective genes that counteract cancer-causing genes, the Australian research found.

The author of the study, Monash University’s Dr Paul Lacaze, said it proved that carrying cancer-causing gene variations like BRCA1/BRCA2, Lynch’s Syndrome or 50 other pathogenic gene variations was “not a death sentence”.

He is now racing to identify other genetic variations that might explain why such people did not develop cancer in order to finetune the usefulness of genetic testing for disease.

It could eventually lead to some women being told that even though they have a BRCA gene, their risk of cancer is still low so drastic action like breast and ovarian removal is not necessary.

Regular cancer checks might be all they need to protect themselves.

“They might actually be stratified into low, medium and high risk based on the rest of the genome. So that’s what we were we hope to get to, in coming years, is a more nuanced measure of genetic risk,” Dr Lacaze said.

Women with BRCA genes have a 70 per cent chance of getting breast cancer so it was important they sought medical advice about preventive surgery.

Krystal Barter from breast cancer charity Pink Hope said preventive surgeries were drastic and welcomed any research leading to prevention.

“If you don’t need to have them and you have more information that enables you to make more appropriate decisions, it’s going to be better for everyone so you know this is excellent research,” she said.

She said she knew of a family where a mother lost two daughters to breast cancer when they were in their thirties. The mother carried the same BRCA gene, but reached her late sixties without ever developing breast cancer.