A report recently published in BMC Cancer (2008, July 25) provides relief to women who were worried about a relative being diagnosed with breast cancer.  According to the study, a family history of breast cancer does not give a useful indication that a woman will develop breast cancer at an early age.

Previously many studies had shown that there was an increased risk of breast cancer for relatives of breast cancer patients.  As a result of this increased risk, physicians were referring healthy women with a family history of breast cancer for screening and in some cases genetic screening.

According to the study leader, Geertruida H. de Bock of the University Medical Centre in the Netherlands, there was a "low prevelance of early breast cancer in the population, the predictive value ofa family history of breast cancer was 13% before the age of 70, 11% before the age of 50 and 1% before the age of 30."

These numbers are much lower than most women would have expected, and should be used to reassure women regarding their personal breast cancer risk.