Współczesna Onkologia

Abstract

2/2010 vol. 14
Review paper

Status of the BRCA1 gene and incidence of hereditary ovarian cancer

Współczesna Onkologia (2010) vol. 14; 2 (72–78)
Online publish date: 2010/04/30
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Confronting perimenopausal women’s knowledge of coronary heart disease with their health behaviours. Controversial role of hormone replacement therapy in the protection of coronary heart disease
Ovarian cancer is the leading cause of mortality in women with gynaecological cancers. Cytoreductive surgery has been considered as a mainstay in manage­ment of ovarian cancer for a long time. Further chemotherapy, based on platinum compounds and taxanes given in an adjuvant setting, allows 5-year survival to be achieved in 10-30% of ovarian cancer patients. Among these cases, it is thought that 5-10% of patients have familial or hereditary disease in which mutations within BRCA genes are the main culprits of 80-90% of ovarian cancer sufferers. The risk of ovarian cancer development in carriers of a mutated BRCA1 gene is 16-60%, which underlines the great need for a precise tool in the form of molecular tests. Now it is time for development of a direct-to-consumer (DTC) strategy that offers commercially available molecular tests with wide utility.
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