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Cancer Cancer Screening and Prevention

A woman is less likely to report a family history of breast cancer when it is on the father’s side.


While previous studies have shown that women are generally accurate when they report to their doctors that a maternal relative has, or had, breast cancer, they less rarely report a history of breast cancer on their father’s side of the family. Researchers looked at a database of women without breast cancer and found that 16 percent reported a maternal relative with breast cancer, but only 10 percent reported a history of breast cancer on their father’s side. Dr. John Quillin, study author, and colleagues, suggest that this discrepancy may be caused by various factors. First, men may not be aware of their family’s history of breast cancer, or they may not relay this information to their daughters. It is also possible that a significant number of fathers were not present in the home or are unknown to the daughter. This missing information could be critical in determining a woman’s risk of breast cancer. “Disease prevention scientists need to be mindful of this discrepancy,” Quillin writes.