A 28-year-old woman consults you because of a strong family history of cancer. Her mother developed breast cancer at the age of 35 and she has two maternal aunts both with premenopausal breast cancer. Her grandmother developed cancer of the ovary at the age of 52, and her maternal great aunt also died from an intra-abdominal malignancy, cause unknown.

You arrange a 'genetic test' for cancer and she is found to have a BRCA1 mutation.

1. What is BRCA1?
   
   
2. What are her chances of developing breast cancer before the age of: (a) 30 (b) 50 (c) 60?
   
   
3. What is her lifetime risk of developing ovarian cancer?
   
   
4. Apart from BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutations, what other genes (and common mutations in genes) are linked to breast cancer?
   
   
5. What prophylactic procedure will substantially reduce her risk of dying from intra-abdominal cancer?

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