Women with genetic mutations fare no worse with breast or ovarian cancer, study finds

Women newly diagnosed with breast or ovarian cancer who are also carriers of cancer-associated mutations like BRCA1 or BRCA2 are no more likely to die of their tumors than those who don’t have the mutations, according to a new study.

Increasingly, doctors recommend genetic testing for newly diagnosed breast or ovarian cancer patients to learn whether they carry any of several inherited cancer-associated mutations. Knowing a cancer’s genetic fingerprint can help doctors sift among treatment options, and it can help alert a patient’s blood relatives that they might also carry the risky mutation.

However, women who learn that they carry such a mutation may worry it means they face a worse outcome. Yet a study of about 26,000 people with breast or ovarian cancer shows that, in fact, carriers of inherited mutations have equivalent or better outcomes than women without these mutations — perhaps due to a greater sensitivity to the chemotherapy often used to treat such cancers.

Read more Stanford Medicine, by Krista Conger,  about Women with genetic mutations fare no worse with breast or ovarian cancer, study finds

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