I read in a US News & World Report article today that women whose sisters were diagnosed with breast cancer face an increased risk of breast cancer throughout their lives regardless of their sister’s age at diagnosis.
I have two sisters, so I was particularly interested in this one. I did a quick look at the Science Daily article on the same topic …
“Sisters of women diagnosed with breast cancer still have an increased risk of breast cancer 20 years after diagnosis of the sister, suggesting that women live with the burden of familial breast cancer for their lifetime,” the …read more

It’s fairly common knowledge in the breast cancer community that women with an abnormality in either the BRCA1 or BRCA2 genes are predisposed towards the disease and have a greater likelihood of developing breast cancer at a young age (before menopause).
For instance, while it is approximated that 13.2 percent of the general population will develop breast cancer, 36 – 85% of women with a mutation to either their BRCA1 or BRCA2 genes will get the disease.
(FYI, those genes were named quite simply: BReast CAncer 1 and BReast CAncer 2.)
It’s not as commonly known that men with BRCA1 or BRCA2 …read more