Is it Hereditary?

Since I am young (yeah!) and Mother and 2 of her sisters have had breast cancer, it was recommended that I be tested for the BRCA1 and BRCA2 gene mutations. Although less than 10% of breast cancers are hereditary, the presence of mutations in these genes is a strong indicator for the occurrence of breast and ovarian cancer. Insurance was willing to pay for the testing, so I went in and had the blood drawn for this test the day after we received the pathology reports. It would take about 2 weeks for the results to come back. In the mean time, we met with a geneticist at the Cancer Clinic. Using information I had given, she had created a family tree showing the incidence of breast cancer and other diseases. As we discussed the probabilities, it looked like the BRCA mutations would be unlikely. I have 66 first cousins on my mother's side and to my knowledge, none have had breast cancer. It appeared that the three sisters having breast cancer was more likely to be environmentally related than genetically. Last week we got the good news that the BRCA test was negative - Yea! (I like this sorting hat!) The implications of that are that it won't be passed on to the children or grandchildren and that the cancer I have now is far less likely to occur in the other breast. Good news!