ABSTRACT
It has long been known that some women are at increased breast cancer risk as a result of their family history. The BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes were identified in the early 1990s, and studies began to investigate the protective effect of risk-reducing mastectomy (RRM). RRM has been used for over 50 years, well before genetic testing was made available, and several retrospective studies had been published prior to this article suggesting a protective effect. This study set out to assess breast cancer rates in women after bilateral risk-reducing mastectomy (BRRM), relative to their own untreated relatives or relative to their predicted breast cancer risk, derived from Gail model 1 estimates (an online tool which uses a woman's personal data about family history, parity and previous breast biopsy to derive a breast cancer risk estimate).
