From the STL Post-Dispatch

Dr. Matthew Powell with some quotes in today's article regarding BRCA.


"For years, women with a rare gene mutation that puts them at higher risk for cancer have chosen to have their healthy breasts and ovaries surgically removed as a preventive measure.
New data on the subject, released today, suggest the surgeries do reduce a woman's risk of developing breast and ovarian cancers and improve her chances of living longer.
"It's just verifying what we already would expect to be true," said Dr. Matthew Powell, assistant professor of gynecology at Washington University School of Medicine. "Now we have longer-term follow up and more concrete numbers for our patients to really grasp."
The study is the largest to date to find advantages for preventive surgery for women who carry BRCA gene mutations (found in fewer than 1 percent of the general population).
Women with the faulty genes have a dramatically higher cancer risk than other women — five times greater for breast cancer and at least 10 times greater for ovarian cancer.
The study, appearing in today's Journal of the American Medical Association, found benefits for women with two different BRCA gene variants whether they had previously had breast cancer or not."