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Of: TT
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Photo: Marcus Ericsson / TT
The test can save lives, emphasizes chief physician Hans Ehrencrona. Stock Photography.
Young women with breast cancer may be offered a test to determine if the cancer is hereditary. It can save the lives of sisters, daughters, and other relatives, but for many, genetic testing is never done.
Among the 279 women in southern Sweden who developed breast cancer before age 36 during the years 2000-2013, 36 percent had not undergone genetic testing, according to a study by Lund University and the Region. Skåne.
– The important thing about this is that not all young women receive the care to which they are entitled, Annelie Augustinsson, a doctoral student in the department of oncology and pathology at Lund University, tells TT.
The test can save lives, emphasizes chief physician Hans Ehrencrona, associate professor in the department of clinical genetics at Lund University, who was also involved in the study.
Simple blood test
The women in the study hailed from Skåne, Blekinge, Kronoberg County and southern Halland, and among them it was more common for women in smaller towns not to be tested. How it looks in the rest of the country has not been investigated.
Genetic testing is done through a simple blood test. Knowing if it is a hereditary type of cancer is important, both for the woman undergoing the test and for her family members.
“In a family where we find a hereditary genetic change that greatly increases the risk of cancer, we can also offer sisters, daughters, and other family members to be tested for their own risk. You can choose to go for check-ups and consider prevention operations on their part, “says Hans Ehrencrona in a press release.
Best deal
An example of such a preventive operation is the removal of the ovaries, as there is a link between hereditary breast cancer in young women and ovarian cancer. Better treatment can also be offered to women if they know it is a hereditary cancer and thus the chances of survival are increased.
The next step is to find out why the women did not take the test: have they refused or received no information about it?
In a new study, women from the southern healthcare region who have contracted breast cancer before age 36 between 2000 and 2017 will be contacted. They should be offered a referral for testing and asked why not they have done it before.
– We hope to hear if they previously refused or did not receive any information when they received their diagnosis. We’ll also ask why they say yes today, says Annelie Augustinsson.
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