Brca2

TV personality Giuliana Rancic announced Monday she's decided to have a double mastectomy after undergoing a double lumpectomy for breast cancer. Rancic's husband Bill told the "Today" show that despite having the lumpectomies not all cancer cells were eradicated. That prompted the decision to forgo yet another lumpectomy and radiation and try a more drastic approach. Whether or not a woman decides to under go a double, or contralateral, mastectomy depends on a number of factors, said Dr. Gregory Senofsky, breast cancer surgeon and assistant director of the Margie Petersen Breast Center at Saint John's Health Center in Santa Monica.

Angelina Jolie's revelation that she underwent a preventative double mastectomy may seem like a shocking move to some. But for many women who have dangerous hereditary risks coded into their genes, this kind of surgery before cancer strikes serves as a viable alternative that's been growing in popularity over the last few decades, doctors say. For patients with a dangerous mutation in the BRCA1 or BRCA2 genes that dramatically raises their risk...

Most court cases involving patent law are corporate battles, with one company suing another for infringing on its intellectual property rights and, therefore, profits. Big companies fighting over big money can seem painfully irrelevant, especially when so many of us are simply struggling to get by. But the case coming before the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday challenging two patents is a different animal, with enormous implications for both our health and shared humanity. The patents in question are on two human genes, BRCA1 and BRCA2, commonly referred to as the "breast cancer genes.

A massive gene-hunting effort involving hundreds of scientists has identified 74 newly discovered regions of DNA that are associated with breast, ovarian and prostate cancers - diseases that strike about half a million Americans every year. The international project, known as the Collaborative Oncological Gene-environment Study, or COGS, nearly doubled the number of genetic markers known to be linked with the three cancers, scientists reported Wednesday. Their findings could lead to more effective ways to screen, study and treat these diseases.

Two studies published in the October issue of Nature Genetics indicate that about 1 in 100 Jewish women of Eastern European descent, or about four times as many as previously thought, harbors a specific genetic mutation that increases her risk of breast and ovarian cancer. The gene in question, called BRCA2, is almost never mutated in other ethnic groups and is unrelated to a gene called BRCA1, which also increases the risk of breast and ovarian cancer.

Scientists have completed the final analysis of two more human chromosomes. Chromosome 19 with nearly 1,500 genes, including some linked to high cholesterol and insulin-resistant diabetes, is the most gene-dense of those sequenced. By contrast, chromosome 13 has one of the lowest concentrations of genes with only 633. But they include the BRCA2 gene linked to breast cancer and others linked to bipolar disorder and schizophrenia.

Women with a high genetic risk for breast cancer run a better chance of having it detected with magnetic resonance imaging than with mammography and other methods, researchers have reported. The kind of breast cancer involved is caused by mutations of the genes BRCA1 and BRCA2, believed responsible for 5% to 10% of all breast cancer cases. Women with the mutations have a significantly higher risk of breast cancer.

Birth control pills appear to halve the chances of ovarian cancer among women with a faulty gene that puts them at high risk for the disease. The pill has long been known to reduce the risk of this kind of cancer among women in general. But until now, it was not clear whether the pill helped those whose risk resulted from bad genes, called BRCA1 and BRCA2. Dr. Steven A.