Jan's sister and mother have both had breast cancer. She is wondering if she should undergo genetic testing to check for a mutat
ion of the BRCA1 gene. A mutation in the BRCA1 gene is commonly associated with, but not guaranteed to cause, breast cancer. The presence of a mutation increases a patient's chances of getting breast cancer to about 85 percent, compared to a 13 percent risk in the general population. Costs may vary, but most labs charge patients or their insurance companies less than $3,000 to sequence the BRCA1 to look for mutations. Do you think that Jan should undergo genetic sequencing? Explain your answer.
Yes, Jan should undergo genetic sequencing.BRCA1/BRCA2 are the causes of 20-25% of all hereditary breast cancers, so if Jan's mother and sister both have breast cancer, then the odds are that she has BRCA1 as well.
Jan already has a family history of breast cancer, which means that she already has a certain chance of experiencing this cancer in the future, for this reason, Jan should look for ways to decrease the risk factors for breast cancer to develop. develop into it. One of Jan's ways of taking precautions is through genetic sequencing, which can show her if she has a BRCA1 gene mutation.
However, as we already know, this procedure is very expensive and an accurate result is not guaranteed. With that we can say that Jan should do the sequencing if she has enough resources for that.
