Do doctors use genetics or family history when assessing a persons risk of developing breast cancer?
Dr. Mahoney: They do, but it is dangerous and should be discouraged. “Risk” is a concept that applies to populations, not to individuals. If you have one room with 500 healthy women who have absolutely no family history of breast cancer in it, and another room with 500 healthy women each with at least 2 or 3 relatives with breast cancer, take all 1000 names, and then invite them back in 10 years to count the number of cases of breast cancer that developed in the 10 years in each room, you will most likely count more cases in the room full of women with a family history. This is a clue for researchers about possible factors to explore in the causation of the disease. But if you are a doctor in an exam room with a patient who has a new breast lump, that lump either is or is not cancer, and you can’t use family history to tell the difference or to avoid a biopsy. 23andMe: Recent genetic studies have enabled scientists to identify genetic markers that may be associated with increased risk
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