Caring for patients with breast cancer from 35 hospitals and hospices across london and the home counties
Open 9am - 5pm
Answerphone at
other times
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Genetic versus Sporadic Breast Cancer
Breast cancer is a common disease. One in nine women in the UK (11%) may develop breast cancer during their lifetime. Ovarian cancer is not as common, occurring in around 1in 50-100 women (0.5-1%). Most of the time breast and/or ovarian cancer are randomly occurring events (sporadic) i.e. caused by chance or perhaps by environmental factors. However, some of the time, especially when there is a very strong family history of breast and/or ovarian cancer, there can be an altered gene (gene mutation) that is responsible for the cancer developing. While there are predicted to be many different genes causing cancer, there are two specific genes we know about which are responsible for hereditary breast and/or ovarian cancer, BRCA1 and BRCA2. BRCA stands for BReast CAncer, and the numbers simply tell us which gene was discovered first.
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OTHER TESTIMONIALS
“When you came to see me nearly a year ago, I was very receptive to your offers of help. But I could have no idea how much Cancerkin would do for me over this difficult year.”
Gillian
