Blood test ‘can spot breast cancer risk years in advance’

By NATALIE WALKER
Published on 19/10/2012 00:00

A BLOOD test for circulating hormones can reveal a woman’s risk of breast cancer up to 20 years in advance, research suggests.

High levels of the hormones oestradiol, testosterone and DHEAS doubled the chances of some women developing the disease, a study found.

Lead researcher Dr Xuehong Zhang, from Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, said: “We, and others, are now evaluating if the addition of hormone levels to current risk prediction models can substantially improve our ability to identify high-risk women ­ who would benefit from ­enhanced screening or chemoprevention.

“If so, the current data suggest that hormone levels would not need to be measured in the clinic more than once every ten, or possibly 20, years.”

Tests were carried out ten years apart on participants in the Nurses’ Health Study, a major US investigation of risk factors affecting women’s health.

A total of 796 of the women were diagnosed with breast cancer in 2010, a decade after the second round of tests.