EDITORIALS 1675 More than a decade after the discovery of the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes, a consensus has yet to emerge regarding the frequency and precise magnitude and spectrum of cancer risks for individuals carrying mutations of these genes. Although these questions constitute a topic of heated debate among cancer epidemiologists ( 1 – 9 ) , they are also of clinical concern to women and men con...

BACKGROUND Germline mutations in the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes are associated with an increased risk of breast cancer. Whether women with breast cancer who have inherited mutations in these genes have a different outcome after breast conservation therapy than women with "sporadic" cancer is unresolved. Consequently, we compared the outcomes after breast conservation therapy in Ashkenazi women with ...

Ovarian cancer (OC) is the seventh most common cancer in women. Although women diagnosed with OC are usually treated frontline with platinum-based chemotherapy, most of them relapse once treatment is halted. Therefore, maintenance therapies have been developed to secure the response and delay further chemotherapy. There are two established maintenance therapies for women affected by platinum-se...

There is a number of drugs demonstrating specific activity towards hereditary cancers. For example, tumors in BRCA1/2 mutation carriers usually arise via somatic inactivation of the remaining BRCA allele, which makes them particularly sensitive to platinum-based drugs, PARP inhibitors (PARPi), mitomycin C, liposomal doxorubicin, etc. There are several molecular assays for BRCA-ness, which permi...

CONTEXT An autosomal dominant pattern of hereditary breast cancer may be masked by small family size or transmission through males given sex-limited expression. OBJECTIVE To determine if BRCA gene mutations are more prevalent among single cases of early onset breast cancer in families with limited vs adequate family structure than would be predicted by currently available probability models. ...

BACKGROUND The aim of this study was to analyze the occurrence of clinical features characteristic of breast cancer type 1 susceptibility protein (BRCA-1)-dependent tumors in a series of BRCA-1 mutation carriers with laryngeal cancer. PATIENTS AND METHODS The clinical features of five laryngeal cancer patients with BRCA-1 mutations registered in our center were analyzed for: sex, age at diagn...

Gynecological carcinomas are major therapeutic targets of platinum-containing regimens. They may be particularly susceptible to these agents if their origins are related to hereditary breast cancer (BRCA) mutations; this implicates defective DNA repair secondary to inherited alterations in BRCA function. The concept of 'BRCAness' was introduced by Ashworth and colleagues in order to identify ph...