Atheer – Oman News Agency
According to a new US study, a woman’s risk of developing breast cancer increases if her mother or one of her sisters has had the disease. The study also suggested that the risk associated with family history does not decline with age.
Family history has long been linked to an increased risk of breast cancer in younger women, who are generally recommended to start having mammograms within ten years of the age at which their mother or sister was diagnosed with the disease.
Susceptibility to cancer on the basis of family history was previously believed to decline in older women, with routine radiotherapy often being stopped by the time they reached the age of 70.
“The risk of breast cancer is almost twice as high in older women with a family history of the disease than those without a family history,” said study author Digana Prithwaite from Georgetown University Medical Center in Washington.
Although current US regulations advise women to check for mammograms every two years between the ages of 50 and 74, the US Preventive Services Task Force is yet to find sufficient evidence to confirm whether women over 74 should continue radiotherapy.
