Review: Management of patients at high risk for breast and ovarian cancer

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Literature review current through: Mar 2016. | This topic last updated: Mar 21, 2016. 

INTRODUCTION — The majority of patients with hereditary breast and ovarian cancers have mutations in either the breast cancer type 1 or 2 susceptibility genes (BRCA1 and BRCA2; referred in this topic as BRCA). Mutations in these genes are implicated in about 15 percent of women with familial breast cancer and a similar proportion of all women with incident ovarian cancers [1,2].....