Doctors Find New Generation Of Women Gets Hereditary Cancers At Younger Age

By: Kafi Drexel

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The research already shows women are at greater risk for developing breast or ovarian cancer if they have they have a BRCA gene mutation. Now a new study shows women with those hereditary cancers get them at earlier ages than relatives in their previous generation. NY1's Health reporter Kafi Drexel filed the following report.

A new study in the online journal Cancer shows women who carry the BRCA gene may be at risk of developing breast or ovarian cancer nearly eight years earlier than family members in the generation before them.

"Clinicians like me have observed for years that it seemed to us that the age of diagnosis of breast cancer was moving down in successive generations in family where there was a great deal of breast cancer, particularly in families where the cancers occurred as a result of the BRCA genetic mutations," says Dr. Freya Schnabel, the director of breast surgery at NYU Langone Medical Center.

Kelly McSpirit, who has the BRCA gene, is now breast cancer free after catching it on her own two years ago. She says the findings make sense, considering her family history.

"My aunt had cancer, breast cancer, when she was in her early 50s. Her daughter had cancer when she was in her 30s and I received it when I was 40," says McSpirit.

Will these cancers continue to develop at younger and younger ages for every generation? Doctors say the answer to that is still on it's way.

"Breast cancer overall is very rare in women in their 20s. Because of the way the breast matures, it's very unlikely that we will ever see breast cancer occurring in extremely young women before the age of the early 20s," says Schnabel. "The reason for the decrease in age in successive generations that was seen in this study is not completely clear."

Reproductive or environmental factors could also play a role like when women choose to have babies or if they smoke or drink. Older generations may have also had later screenings. So experts say wider study is definitely needed.

But the eight-year gap is still a significant finding, and doctors say it supports the need to continue screenings at least 10 years prior to the age of diagnosis of the previous generation, which is already the recommendation of most cancer groups.