Awareness Week
How a family history of cancer could save your life – Hereditary Cancer Awareness Week
26th September – 2nd October is Hereditary Cancer Awareness week and we’re partnering with the charity Ovarian Cancer Action to find those at the highest risk of developing hereditary cancer.
If your family has a history of cancer, you should check to see if you could be at risk. That’s the message this Hereditary Cancer Awareness Week from our charity partner Ovarian Cancer Action.
What is hereditary cancer?
1 in 10 cancers are caused by inherited faulty genes. These faulty genes increase your risk of a number of cancers including ovarian, breast and bowel cancer.
Many of us will have heard about Angelina Jolie having surgery to reduce her risk of cancer after finding out she carried the BRCA 1 gene fault. After losing her mother and grandmother to cancer, she was able to user her family history to eliminate her risk of developing the disease.
One in 200 of the UK population carries a BRCA gene fault — that’s an estimated 535,000+ people with increased cancer risk. However, only about 5% of carriers have been identified so far.
The only way to know if you are a carrier is through a genetic test — although, to have a test funded by HSC you must have sufficient and relevant family history of cancer.
An online tool can save your life
Ovarian Cancer Action has an online Hereditary Cancer Risk Tool to assess your eligibility for a genetic test. It involves a simple questionnaire about your family history of cancer, and the charity is calling on us all to check our risk this week.
Fill out the questionnaire here - https://ovarian.org.uk/risktool/
If you’d like to talk to someone at the charity about hereditary cancer risk you can email them at brca@ovarian.org.uk
