New screening tool boosts breast cancer detection

The role genes play in disease development can be thwarted if women are correctly identified and given heightened scrutiny and targeted treatment.

By Susan J. Landers, AMNews staff. Nov. 6, 2006.

Washington -- A new, simple-to-use screening tool that identifies women at risk for hereditary breast cancer was found in a recent trial to be extremely sensitive, according to a study in the Oct. 15 journal Cancer.

The pedigree assessment tool, or PAT, was designed to be used by primary care physicians to help them identify women with family cancer histories that suggest a hereditary breast cancer syndrome.

An estimated one in 200 to 300 women carry genes for this susceptibility, said Kent F. Hoskins, MD, an oncologist and director of the cancer risk assessment program at the OSF Saint Anthony Center for Cancer Care in Rockford, Ill. He developed the PAT with center colleagues.

The most widely recognized breast cancer genes are BRCA1 and BRCA2, but there likely are others yet to be found. The lifetime risk for women who inherit these mutated genes is 50% to 80% for developing breast cancer and 10% to 40% for developing ovarian cancer, he noted.

Once identified, these high-risk women can be referred for additional help from genetic counselors who could recommend rigorous screening or preventive medications.

To have the greatest impact on this population, Dr. Hoskins and colleagues set out to develop a tool for breast cancer risk assessment that could be used broadly, much as screening mammography is employed, and in the primary care setting rather than by specialists.