In what comes as a surprise to both scientific thought and conventional wisdom, a recent study suggests that, for women ages 40 to 49, a family history of breast cancer makes no difference in their rates of invasive disease.
In this study, presented at the meeting of the Radiological Society of North America, researchers assessed over 1,000 breast cancer patients. They found that, among both those patients who had a family history of breast cancer and those who did not, the respective percentages who had an invasive cancer were nearly identical about 64 percent. Additionally, both groups had similar rates (around 30 percent) of the disease s metastasis to the lymph nodes.
The current mammography guidelines do not recommend screening for breast cancer in the 40- to 49-year age range unless a woman has a family history of breast cancer. However, the researchers point out that this recommendation may need to be revised, since, according to their study, women in this age group have similar rates of invasive disease whether they have a family history or not.
Since these results are still preliminary, ACSH's Dr. Gilbert Ross notes that this finding should be re-evaluated in a larger population. If confirmed, he says, it would certainly be a shift in the parameters we normally link to increased breast cancer risk.
