Is screening available to detect the condition?
Breast cancer is the commonest cancer in UK women, for which mammography screening is offered for women over 50yrs (NHS Breast Screening Programme). Inherited susceptibilities account for less than 5% of cases, and it is currently not possibly to identify such women in the general population. However, once a susceptibility gene change (mutation) is identified in a family, relatives can be offered testing for the same mutation. This is called ‘cascade screening’.
