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dr felicia tan Breast Surgery BREAST CANCER GENE TESTING ON 14TH MAY 2013, ANGELINA JOLIE - COMMONLY - FeM Surgery, for instance, sends the blood sample held to be one of the most beautiful women in the to patented laboratories in Australia or America world - made a shocking announcement in the New for analysis, and it takes about three months for York Times. She had undergone a preventive double the results to come back - but once the results mastectomy after learning that she carried a genetic are in, the patient will learn if they have indeed mutation that increased the odds of developing breast inherited a BRCA gene mutation. cancer to 87 per cent and ovarian cancer to 50 per mutations are fairly uncommon, and many patients cent. Even though she had no current signs of either come back with no evidence of such a mutation. disease, Jolie decided to get tested because her mother died of ovarian cancer at the age of 56. While of it only reveals a person’s risk for developing cancer: it is not a life sentence dictating that the patient discuss the medical science behind her decision. will definitely develop the disease in the future. across What exactly how does mastectomy all was media the caused outlets, few lot and While preventive surgery such as a double help? mastectomy (ala Angelina Jolie) has been known Mutations to either the BRCA1 or BRCA2 gene can to reduce breast cancer risk by about 90 per cent, undergoing genetic a It should however be noted that even if a patient were to receive a positive result on the test, actually uproar the Thankfully, such a mutation, mastectomy significantly increase your risk of breast and ovarian other options are also available. cancer when compared with the cancer risk of a one’s fallopian tubes and ovaries, for instance, woman without such a mutation. Men with inherited has been known to reduce breast cancer risk BRCA mutation also face an increased risk of breast by 50 per cent in premenopausal women while cancer, and the same mutation may increase the risk reducing ovarian cancer risk by more than 90 per of other types of cancer in both women and men. cent in both pre- and postmenopausal women. The removal of The detection test for this mutation is fairly Preventive surgery like what Angelina Jolie chose straightforward and requires nothing more than a is not your only option. Increase surveillance with blood sample from the patient, where the DNA within regular, close-interval breast screening and ovarian the sample is then analysed to identify any mutations screening can help detect cancer at an early stage. in either one of these two genes. As a general rule Cancers detected at an early stage have a good chance of thumb, this screening test is only offered to people of complete cure with very tolerable treatment regimes. who have a higher than average risk of developing Patients at high risk of developing breast cancer may also such mutations: primarily, people who have a personal take a medication called tamoxifen to reduce this risk. or family history of such mutations. It is not a routine The decision for breast cancer gene screening examination, nor is it regularly performed testing should be made only after a thorough on women who do not have any reason to suspect discussion with your doctor and full understanding that they may have inherited such a mutation. of the myriad implications of the result. n It takes awhile for the analysis to be completed DR FELICIA TAN | Breast Surgeon FeM Surgery MBBS (Singapore), M Med (Surg) (Singapore), FRCS 3 Mount Elizabeth #05-02 Mount Elizabeth Medical Centre. Tel: 6733 3383 (Edinburgh) www.femsurgery.com 86 this quarterly