Have we learnt a lesson about investing in cancer prevention?

In 1990, after 17 years of painstaking work, geneticist Mary-Claire King announced she was close to pinpointing the location of a mutated gene that we now know is responsible for increasing your risk of ovarian and breast cancer development. Her pioneering work cleared the path for future research aimed at predicting who might be at higher risk for developing these diseases and devising better and more targeted treatments for those carrying the mutated gene.

The focus of the medical research that we fund at Eve is on early detection, prevention and risk prediction.

A huge body of this research is focused on BRCA and last week our research team lead by Professor Ranjit Manchanda and colleagues from QML and Barts published a research paper in leading academic journal Cancer.

The findings are internationally significant and they are positive for cancer prevention, with the possibility that millions of ovarian and breast cancers could potentially be prevented worldwide by broadening genetic testing. In the UK, this could result in preventing 9,700 cases of ovarian cancer.

Over the next week, on Eve Appeal social media channels, we will be sharing stories from women and their families who have been affected by the news that one of them carries a gene mutation – and the implications and choices it leaves for all of them.

Please follow us, please share their stories and above all, please share our vision to prevent every case of cancer that we possibly can.

This, from Professor King sums it up:

'Every breast or ovarian cancer patient with a BRCA1 or BRCA2 mutation detected after diagnosis is a missed opportunity to prevent a cancer.’

You can read more about the research paper and its findings here: https://eveappeal.org.uk/blog/new-modelling-shows-that-extending-cancer-gene-testing-could-prevent-millions-more-cancer-cases-worldwide/

#eveappeal #health #cancer #cancercommunity #medicalresearch #BRCA #prevention #wellbeing #womenshealth #fundraising #charity