“One-thousand Canadian Jewish women are being offered a chance to take a free test to find out if they are at a high risk of developing breast and ovarian cancers. Scientists with Women’s College Research Institute will screen for three inherited breast cancer gene mutations common to people of Ashkenazi Jewish ancestry with the aim of preventing the disease. …”

“One-thousand Canadian Jewish women are being offered a chance to take a free test to find out if they are at a high risk of developing breast and ovarian cancers. Scientists with Women’s College Research Institute will screen for three inherited breast cancer gene mutations common to people of Ashkenazi Jewish ancestry with the aim of preventing the disease.

Adult Jewish women in Ontario, who have no known family history of breast or ovarian cancer, are being offered a blood test to screen for three specific mutations of the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes, beginning this Thursday in Toronto. Jewish women with a family history of breast or ovarian cancer who have never been tested are also eligible. If expanding genetic testing to this group proves worthwhile, it could change the way the testing is offered across Canada by recognizing cancer risk due to ancestry.

The goal of the test is ‘to prevent cancer,’ said Steven Narod, director of the familial breast cancer research unit at Women’s College Research Institute. He said one in 44 Ashkenazi Jewish people carry the mutation compared to the general population in which an estimated one in 400 individuals carries a mutation in BRCA1 or BRCA2. According to UIA Federations Canada, most of Canada’s Jewish population is Ashkenazi — 327,360 out of a total of 370,055 — and about half of the Ashkenazi Jewish population, 165,175 — live in Toronto.

About 70 per cent of women who are BRCA1 mutation carriers will develop breast cancer by age 70 while 40 per cent will develop ovarian cancer by the same age. Those who carry the BRCA2 genetic mutation face the same breast cancer risk as those BRCA1 mutation carriers, but their risk of developing ovarian cancer is between 15 and 20 per cent by age 70, according to Narod’s group.”

[Quoted Source: Women of Ashkenazi Jewish Ancestry To Be Tested For Cancer Gene Mutation, Times & Transcript, May 28, 2008.]