Learning More and
Taking Action
Knowing more about your risk can help you and your doctor make better, more informed decisions about your health, possibly before cancer has a chance to develop.
- How Do I Know If I Need to Learn More?
- How Learning More Can Help
- Identifying Risk
- Taking Action to Reduce Your Risk
How Do I Know If I Need to Learn More?
You should consider learning more about whether you are at risk for Hereditary Breast and Ovarian Cancer (HBOC) syndrome if you:
- Have had breast cancer before age 50
- Have 2 or more relatives who've had breast cancer
- Have a male relative who's had breast cancer
- Have had breast cancer in both breasts or twice in the same breast
- Have had breast cancer and are of Ashkenazi, or Eastern European Jewish, ancestry
- Have had ovarian cancer at any age
Using our Risk Check Tool can help you decide whether you and your doctor should have a conversation about HBOC.
“Family history is the strongest single predictor of a woman's chance of developing breast cancer.”
— The National Human Genome Research Institute,
National Institutes of Health
Back to TopHow Learning More Can Help
Knowing more about your risk can help you make more informed healthcare decisions—possibly before cancer has a chance to develop. For example:
- Your doctor may advise you to start cancer screening at an earlier age, or consider options such as risk-reducing medications and preventive surgery
- Your doctor can help you move forward with the right action plan for you particular risks
- If you have already been diagnosed with cancer, knowing your risk may be able to help you prevent a second cancer
- What you learn about your inherited risk can help relatives learn and understand more about their inherited risk
“Learning more about your breast and ovarian cancer risk will not give you a simple 'yes' or 'no' answer. It will not tell if or when cancer will develop. If an alteration is not found, it still is no guarantee that cancer won't develop.”
— The National Cancer Institute, National Institutes of Health
Identifying Risk
Using our Risk Check Tool can help you decide whether you and your doctor should have a conversation about HBOC. If you think you may have one or more of the risk factors that point to HBOC, you and your doctor can consider whether you should learn more about your personal risk for breast and ovarian cancer.
Your doctor—or the specialist your doctor recommends—will want to see a detailed family history that goes back three generations, and includes information about your ethnic background. Based on that information, your doctor may use a model to predict the likelihood that you have inherited a mutated gene.
One option to discuss is genetic testing, such as BRACAnalysis®. BRACAnalysis® does not check for cancer: it is designed to tell you if a higher risk for breast and ovarian cancer runs in your family, and if you have inherited the higher risk.
If you and your doctor decide that you need to learn more about your family cancer risk, your healthcare provider will take a small blood sample and send it to the laboratory for analysis. Your doctor will share results with you as soon as they are available, which can be as soon as two weeks.
Note: Most health insurance plans pay for BRACAnalysis® More than 90% receive coverage, and the average reimbursement is more than 90%.
A number of federal and state laws prohibit insurance discrimination. The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) recognizes genetic information as Protected Health Information (PHI) and specifies protection for the confidentiality of PHI. HIPAA also provides restrictions on health-related information in making coverage decisions and in setting premiums by group health insurers. HIPAA further states that genetic information in the absence of a diagnosis cannot be considered a pre-existing condition. In the federal government, executive departments and agencies are prohibited by executive order from using protected genetic information as a basis for employment decisions. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has interpreted the Americans with Disabilities act to provide some additional protections from the use of genetic information by employers. Many states have enacted additional protections against genetic discrimination in health insurance or employment or both. The Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act is currently awaiting final approval in the US Senate, to complete broad protection of genetic information.
Read more about confidentiality and your medical records here.
“Family history helps to place an individual's cancer risk in perspective, but is also an imperfect tool. For example, family history will be most useful in determining risk if a carrier has multiple relatives affected with breast or ovarian cancer. In this case, a woman's risk of breast cancer may be higher.”
— The National Human Genome Research Institute,
National Institutes of Health
Taking Action to Reduce Your Risk
Most people will not need to be tested for HBOC. If you and your doctor do decide to test, remember that your results can only provide information about your inherited risk of breast and ovarian cancer. They won't tell you whether you have cancer or not.
Depending on your results—and taking your personal and family history into consideration—your doctor will help you create a plan of action to reduce your chances of developing cancer.
If you do have hereditary breast and ovarian cancer (HBOC) syndrome, you can work with your doctor to create a plan for medical management going forward. You can also help family members by sharing your test result with them.
“Not every woman who has an altered BRCA1 or BRCA2 gene will get cancer, because genes are not the only factor that affects cancer risk.”
— The National Human Genome Research Institute,
National Institutes of Health
© 2007 Myriad Genetic Laboratories, Inc., 320 Wakara Way, Salt Lake City, UT 84108-1214. All Rights Reserved.
This Web site is sponsored by Myriad Genetic Laboratories, Inc.