Genetic test may reduce breast cancer screening

GIVING women a genetic test to determine their risk of breast cancer could reduce the number who need to be screened for the disease, research suggests.

The study found that taking into account information from genetic testing and a woman's age before offering further investigations would still detect the same number of cancers as mammography screening.

The researchers said such a method would also reduce some of the risks linked to screening, such as women receiving false positive results and having to have unnecessary treatment and anxiety, and also save the NHS money.

About 11,000 cases of invasive breast cancers are detected a year in the UK through screening. In Scotland, women are invited for screening every three years between the ages of 50 and 70 in a programme which costs 13 million a year.

In the latest study, published in the British Journal of Cancer, scientists used a statistical model to examine the effect of offering screening to women based on their genetic risk as well as age. They found that screening all women between 47 and 79 using a purely age-based programme would potentially detect 85 per cent of cancers.

The same number of cancers would be found if only women who also had a heightened genetic risk were screened, said the researchers.

The lead author, Dr Nora Pashayan, Cancer Research UK training fellow, said: "This is an alternative approach to the existing screening programme and might even have the potential to reduce over-diagnosis and, in turn, lower costs."

The researcher said women would need to have a genetic test before the age of 35.

The test would look for 18 genetic variants that can highlight an increased risk of breast cancer. Dr Pashayan said the test would be a simple blood test to identify genetic risk and, depending on the results, the age at which women should be invited for screening could be calculated.

"For some women this would be when they're 35, for others not until they're in their fifties or sixties or even later," the expert said.

The researchers said a similar approach could also apply if a prostate cancer screening programme was introduced in the UK for men in future.

Professor Paul Pharaoh, a Cancer Research UK expert in genetics, said: "Even though our analysis is based on a theoretical model … it still shows that personalised screening has the potential to reduce the disadvantages of a screening programme without losing any of its benefits. We now need more research."