Changes to This Summary (06/07/2013)

The PDQ cancer information summaries are reviewed regularly and updated as new information becomes available. This section describes the latest changes made to this summary as of the date above.

High-Penetrance Breast and/or Ovarian Cancer Susceptibility Genes

Added National Comprehensive Cancer Network as reference 82.

Revised text to state that in general, common genetic variants that are associated with cancer susceptibility have a lower penetrance than rare genetic variants.

Added Figure 3, Genetic Architecture of Cancer Risk.

Added text about a matched case-control study of 2,854 pairs of women with a BRCA1 or BRCA2 mutation with and without breast cancer that showed a greater breast cancer risk reduction with surgical menopause than with natural menopause, and a highly significant reduction in breast cancer risk among women who had an oophorectomy after natural menopause (cited Kotsopoulos et al. as reference 403).

Added Hyman et al. as reference 515.

Low- and Moderate-Penetrance Genes Associated With Breast and/or Ovarian Cancer

Added Osorio et al. and De Leeneer et al. as references 86 and 89, respectively.

Psychosocial Issues in Inherited Breast Cancer Syndromes

Added Uptake of Genetic Counseling and Genetic Testing as a new subsection.

This summary is written and maintained by the PDQ Cancer Genetics Editorial Board, which is editorially independent of NCI. The summary reflects an independent review of the literature and does not represent a policy statement of NCI or NIH. More information about summary policies and the role of the PDQ Editorial Boards in maintaining the PDQ summaries can be found on the About This PDQ Summary and PDQ NCI's Comprehensive Cancer Database pages.