According to a New England Journal of Medicine article, the answer is no. Women with the breast cancer mutations BRCA1 and BRCA2 seem to have similar survival rates as women without these gene mutations.
A clinical trial was conducted including 1,500 patients. The researchers wanted to see if the patients with gene mutations had worse outcomes then those that did not have the gene mutations.
The researchers found:
- Overall, deaths rates from breast cancer were not significantly different among patients with BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutations from those without the mutations.
- Among patients who underwent treatment with chemotherapy, death rates from breast cancer were not significantly different between patients with BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutations from those without the mutations.
1. Hi, I've just posted small review about this study:
http://cancergenetics.wordpress.com/2007/07/15/hereditary-breast-cancer-survival-can-be-equal-to-sporadic-cases-research-article/
Posted at 7:20PM on Jul 15th 2007 by ramunas