Unveiling The Hidden Benefits Of Genetic Screening In Breast Cancer Awareness

Like all cancers, for effective medical attention and cure, early detection is Paramount. It is important to get regular breast screenings, regular screening is the best shot to find cancer in the early stage.

Breast Cancer is the most commonly diagnosed Cancer among US women, the overall leading cause of cancer death among women.

30% of breast cancer in women are known to be preventable, major causes of this 30% preventable breast cancer are excessive body weight, excess alcohol intake or physical inactivity.

In this article, we’ll answer a few questions like what genetic testing is, why genetic screening is important to detect breast cancer early, and other importance of genetic screening.

Genetic Testing: This involves taking small samples of saliva, blood or swab from inside the cheeks for laboratory examination or analysis, results can take weeks or months.

Medical purpose of this is to reveal changes ( Mutation) or variants in the genetic pattern of a person that may cause illness or disease.

Why Genetic Screening Is Important To Detect Breast Cancer Early

Everyone has two copies of a particular gene known as BRCA1 and BRCA2 (Breast Cancer Gene 1 and 2) ; these are genes which produce proteins that help in the repair of damaged DNA. Every human inherited a copy of these genes from either parents.

These genes also known as tumor suppressor genes might in some cases have harmful changes in their compositions, when this occurs, cancer can develop. Some of these changes might be as a result of the family genetic Pattern that is inherited. When a person goes for genetic cancer screening, people who inherit harmful variants of this gene are at risk of developing breast cancer.

When this is detected early, proactive medical attention and advice will be given which will lead to medical attention and improved lifestyle of such individuals.

Other Importance Of Genetic Screening And Ethical Challenges

Uncertainty is bound to occur without proper medical diagnoses in many medical conditions, same goes for many undetected cancer cells.

Genetic Screening is there to clear this uncertainty by revealing the specific condition of such individuals and the best method of treatment to be applied while working on the person’s lifestyle to improve, stabilize or stop the growth of such cancerous cells. In most cases, genetic screening also reveals possible cases of ovarian cancer in such women.

Family history remains the best surveillance tool to detect breast cancer or give counseling for a person to undergo breast cancer. Oftentimes, ethical issues remain a major problem between the screened individuals who are not likely to divulge their personal medical result with the rest of the family members, this is another road stop for easy awareness of breast related cancer.

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Presently, it is considered to be an outright responsibility of the patients to reveal their genetic information to their relatives, however, clinicians can help by providing a booklet to be passed to relevant family members. Whether patients often deliver this to the family members or divulge their genetic information is not known.

According to the World Health Organization 2021 release, breast cancer caused 685,000 deaths globally in 2020.  In 2022, approximately 287,850 new cases of invasive breast cancer and 51,400 cases of DCIS will be diagnosed among US women, and 43,250 women will die from breast cancer.

Public health education is rapidly needed to create more awareness on breast cancer and the need to detect it early through screening.

Early signs and Symptoms of breast cancer are to be detected early so women are referred to the appropriate diagnostic center for medical examination. 

By providing public education about breast cancer, more women will visit proper diagnostic centers when such signs present themselves.

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