Doctors are encouraging a new group of people to consider
getting tested for genes that raise the risk of breast cancer: men.
Male relatives of women with such genes often do not realize that
they, too, may carry them, and face greater odds of developing male
breast cancer, as well as prostate, pancreatic and skin cancer, new
research suggests.
"Everyone thinks of breast and ovarian cancer and just assumes
it's all women. They don't even realize these genes can be
inherited from the father's side of the family," said Dr. Mary Daly
of Fox Chase Cancer Center in Philadelphia.
After seeing breast cancer in several male patients who did not
know they were at risk, Daly conducted a small study, which was
presented Friday at a conference in Texas. She now is trying to
convince more fathers, sons and brothers of women with the genes to
get tested.
"Very few of them want to," she said.
Breast cancer is the most common major cancer in American women.
More than 178,000 new cases, and more than 40,000 deaths from it,
are expected in the US this year.
But men get it, too -- about 2,030 cases are estimated to occur
this year, accounting for about 1 percent of all breast cancer
cases, according to the American Cancer Society. About 450 of these
male cases will prove fatal.
The BRCA-1 or BRCA-2 genes markedly raise the risk of breast
cancer and are most prevalent among those of Eastern European
Jewish descent. In men, they double the normal risk of prostate
cancer, triple the risk of pancreatic cancer and make breast cancer
seven times more likely to develop.
As part of a larger study on perceptions of genetic risk, Daly
surveyed 24 close blood relatives of women who had tested positive
for one of these genes and had told their male kin the results.
Six men said they hadn't been told, or had forgotten. Of the
other 18, two mistakenly said the test had been negative. Seven did
not think the results revealed anything about their own cancer
risk. Only five understood they, too, might carry the genes.
Of the six who expressed any interest in being tested
themselves, three said they were doing so mostly for their
children's sake.
"We try to reach out to the men in these families, particularly
men who have little children," Daly said. "If they were to die
without being tested, their children would grow up without that
information, that they, too, were at risk," she said.
Dr. Steven Vogl, a cancer doctor in private practice in New
York, said he recognized that potential when his neighbor was dying
of lung cancer and told him how many female relatives had suffered
or died of breast and other cancers.
"Being a good doctor, I took a history, and realized the man, an
Eastern European Jew, probably had the gene."
"At least it will help his granddaughter to know of the risk,"
Vogl said.
Women, too, need to realize they are doing male relatives and
their descendants a favor when they reveal their own genetic risk
from BRCA genes.
"They don't realize they are at risk, or that their
grandchildren may be," Daly said.
(Agencies via China Daily December 17, 2007)