Breast Cancer Support

As breast cancer research and testing improves our understanding of the disease, more and more women are aware of the steps to take to get screened and protect against disease. In fact, studies show more young women are getting mammographies in recent years. But a recent story on ABCNews.com looks at girls as young as 8 and even 4 years old being tested for genetic predisposition for breast cancer. Awareness goes a long way, is there such a thing as too young? Now that we know so much about the genetic mutation that can lead to breast cancer, would you let your daughter be tested early? How old would she have to be before you’d consider testing?

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This is such a sensitive subject.  If it were my daughter and I had tested + for the BRCA gene mutation, I would let her know when she was mature enough to handle it.  I would leave it up to her if she wanted to do the testing.  It shouldn't be up to the parents to decide whether or not a girl is tested.  She has to decide what she will do with the results before she gets the test.

JMHO

• If it were my daughter and I had tested + for the BRCA gene mutation, I would let her know when she was mature enough to handle it.

I think that's what I'd do, also.  Although I wonder if any anxiety I had would push me into earlier testing ... it really is a tough topic.

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I think the toughest thing about knowing is that if she tested +, what would you then do?  If you are not going to do anything with the information (ie have a bilateral mastectomy or oophorectomy) then there is no reason to know.  She will already be closely watched because she has a family history and will be more educated (hopefully) on breast cancer and how to monitor herself.  I think that if I knew for sure that my daughter carried the gene, I would just be sitting around waiting for the worst to happen.  If I never had her tested, then I could tell myself that she was negative and wouldn't stress out about it as much.  KWIM?

This is a really tough thing to deal with.  I have an acquaintance who has a strong family history and she tested + for the gene.  She has a young daughter and she has said that she will wait until she is mature enough to handle it and she will tell her.  She is leaving it up to her just as her mother left it up to her to make her own decision.

My concern is if you have the early testing and it turns out to be positive, how will this information be used by health insurance companies. If the results are positive, could they then exclude payment for treatment at some point down the line because it may be considered a pre-existing condition? I don't. Another tough issue is immunizing young daughters with Gardasil (sp?) to prevent cervical cancer. Part of me says of course this is a good move, and part of me says we need to teach young girls to be more careful with their sexual relationship decisions. Lauri (12 and 1, in loving memory of Connie Pawling)