Inherited predisposition: Familial aggregation and high risk genes

Abstract

The heritable component of breast cancer has been long recognized, as illustrated in the 1866 report, by a French physician of 10 breast cancer cases in four generations of his wife's family (Broca 1866). Family history of breast cancer is the single most well-established risk factor for breast cancer and confers some of the strongest effects seen among known breast cancer risk factors. The accumulation of epidemiologic evidence has clarified that the increased risk of breast cancer conferred by a positive family history varies with the degree of kinship, the number of affected relatives, and the onset ages in relatives and/or the women under study. © Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2010.