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Genetic Screens May Help Black And Hispanic Women

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Dec 25, 2007 3:18 pm US/Pacific

Genetic Screens May Help Black And Hispanic Women

CBS 5 Health

PALO ALTO

Click to enlarge 1 of 1: Breast Cancer Pink Ribbon
AP/CBS

A new study released today by researchers from Stanford medical school and the Northern California Cancer Center finds that Hispanic and young black women may benefit from genetic screening in connection with a
specific mutated gene associated with breast cancer.

The study of more than 3,100 Northern California breast cancer patients is published in the December 26 edition of the Journal of the American Medical Association. It found that 16.7 percent of black women under 35 with breast cancer have a mutated BRCA1 gene. The rate for Hispanic women with breast cancer was 3.5 percent.

All human beings have the BRCA1 gene, which makes a protein that helps the cell repair its DNA. Women who inherit the mutation are less able to fix DNA damage and tend to accumulate mutations that lead to cancer. They have a roughly 65 percent risk of developing breast cancer and 39 percent risk of ovarian cancer. Scientists have known for some time that Ashkenazi Jewish women are more likely to carry the mutation thus they are more likely to be referred for genetic counseling. This new study should encourage physicians to refer women of other ethnicities as well, according to study senior author and Stanford University health research and policy professor Alice Whitemore.

"The message is that these minority breast cancer patients may need screening in ways that we hadn't appreciated before," Whitemore said in
a statement.

Because Hispanic women from Northern California trace their ancestry from different countries than Hispanic women from other parts of the U.S., the study's findings about Hispanic women may only apply in this area,
according to Whitemore.

The study was funded by the National Cancer Institute.