Prevalence of Pathogenic BRCA1 Mutation Carriers in 5 US Racial/Ethnic Groups.

This article reports on a study to determine the prevalence of the genetic mutation known as BRCA1 in five racial groups of women with breast cancer. The presence of the BRCA gene raises the risk of breast and ovarian cancer in those who carry it and is most often seen in people with multiple relatives who had or have cancer or in people who are of Ashkenazi Jewish heritage. This study compared the number of breast cancer patients with BRCA1 in Hispanic, African American and Asian American groups to those of non-Hispanic, white patients. The study found the highest incidence of BRCA1 is in Hispanic women and the lowest rate is in Asian American women, leading the authors to suspect there may be some unrecognized Jewish ancestry in the Hispanic population.