Finding out more about a wide range of genetic, hormonal and lifestyle factors that may influence breast cancer risk, looking particularly, at women who have a high risk of breast cancer.

This study has been set up to find out more about a wide range of genetic, hormonal and lifestyle factors that may influence breast cancer risk. We are looking, particularly, at women who have a high risk of breast cancer such as those who have had breast cancer in both breasts and those who have a family history of breast cancer. The information that we find out will be used generally to improve our understanding of what causes breast cancer. The findings may also help to target resources such as genetic counselling and screening towards those who need it.

Project details

We are contacting women who have breast cancer themselves and women who have breast cancer in their family through a variety of sources. Some women are contacted via the consultant who treated them for breast cancer, some are contacted via their general practitioner, and others are invited to participate when they attend a genetics, surgical or oncological clinic. Women who have breast cancer in their family are also contacting us directly because they have found out about our studies via the Breakthrough web site.

We ask the women whom we contact, or who approach us, to complete a questionnaire or telephone interview and to give us a small blood sample. With the blood sample we can measure hormones and growth factors and we can look at genetic variants. As none of the tests that we do have known clinical consequences we cannot give individual women “results”. The purpose of these tests is to see, over time, whether some of them may be useful in the future, in a clinical context.

We also ask women whether they would be willing to involve other family members and a friend who is unrelated to them in the study.

Women who are interested in this study are asked to contact:

• Angela Leonard on 020 7927 2689 or


• Agnes Fraser on 020 7927 2059