Family History and Breast Cancer Risk

Principal Investigator:	Megan Welsh and Diana Buist
Funder:	National Cancer Institute
Project Dates:	June 15, 2006 – June 14, 2007

Abstract:
The purpose of this project is to examine the relationship between a family history of breast cancer and a woman’s risk of breast cancer in a population-based setting. Besides the scientific contribution, this study could have important clinical utility for helping guide women and their providers to make decisions about when to start screening for breast cancer and at what interval, it may also provide important information that Group Health could use in examining risk-based screening algorithms.

We will examine whether having multiple affected relatives affects the risk of breast cancer and whether this association is modified by the age of diagnosis in the affected relatives (i.e. < 50 or ≥ 50 years). Additionally, we will consider the ratio of the number of affected relatives to the total number of relatives in determining breast cancer risk to account for the higher likelihood of having a positive family history among women with more relatives.

Publications: None to date.

Relation between family history of breast cancer and breast cancer risk