If diabetes, heart disease, or colon cancer runs in your family, you could be at higher risk of developing those conditions. But if you’re a man, there’s one part of your family health history that may feel easy to brush off: breast cancer. After all, breast cancer primarily impacts women.
So even if you have relatives with a genetic link to the disease, like the BRCA1 or BRCA2 mutation, you’re in the clear, right? So, at the risk of sounding like an after-school special, this is really a case where knowledge is power. Here’s how to fully understand your family’s history of breast cancer and what it means for your well-being.
What to look for in your family It’s not uncommon to have a relative with breast cancer—about one out of eight women in the U.S. will get it in their lifetime. It starts to be worrisome if you have what’s considered a strong family history of the disease. There are few signs that could point to that, according to Giacomo Montagna, MD, MPH, a breast surgeon and co-director of the Rare Breast Cancer Program at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center.
Those include: Having one or more first-degree relatives, like your mom or sister, diagnosed with breast cancer or ovarian cancer before the age of 50. Having more than three relatives on either side of your family diagnosed with a combination of breast cancer, ovarian cancer, or prostate cancer at any point in their lives. Having a male relative who had breast cancer or prostate cancer that was very aggressive or metastatic.
Having any relative with pancreatic cancer at any point in their life. Dive deep into what’s going on You and your doctors have a big question to answer: Could mutations in BRCA1, BRCA2, or one of the other 20+ genes researchers have discovered increase breast cancer susceptibility help explain why this disease and other cancers run in your family? Luckily you can find that out with a simple blood test—and some of the newest ones use just a saliva sample.
Let’s say you have a relative—male or female—who has already tested positive for a BRCA mutation. You should still get tested because it’s not a guarantee you’ll also have it. The odds that a parent will pass on the mutation to their child are actually 50-50, and you have the same odds of testing positive if one of your siblings or kids does.
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