Family Health History and Breast and Ovarian Cancers

Key points

  • Having a family health history of breast and ovarian cancers makes you more likely to develop these cancers.
  • Collect your family health history of breast, ovarian, and other cancers and share this information with your healthcare provider and family members.
  • Your healthcare provider might recommend next steps based on your family health history.
Three generations of women standing in front of a backdrop of paper cut outs of human figures decorated with the breast cancer ribbon symbol.

Overview

If you are a woman with a family health history of breast cancer or ovarian cancer, you may be more likely to get these cancers yourself. Collecting your family health history of breast, ovarian, and other cancers and sharing this information with your healthcare provider can help you find out if you’re at higher risk. If you have had breast, ovarian, or other cancers, make sure your family members know about your diagnosis.

If you are a woman with a parent, sibling, or child with breast cancer, you are at higher risk for breast cancer. It is important that you follow current recommendations and start getting mammograms at age 40. In some cases, your healthcare provider might recommend that you have genetic counseling, and a genetic counselor might recommend genetic testing based on your family health history. Breast, ovarian, and other cancers are sometimes caused by inherited mutations in BRCA1, BRCA2, and other genes. The genetic counselor can help determine which genetic mutations you should be tested for, based on your personal and family health history of cancer, ancestry, and other factors.

When collecting your family health history

  • Include your parents, sisters, brothers, children, grandparents, aunts, uncles, nieces, and nephews;
  • List any cancers that each relative had and at what age he or she was diagnosed. For relatives who have died, list age and cause of death
  • Remember that your risk for breast and ovarian cancers doesn't just come from your mother's side of the family—your father's relatives with breast, ovarian, and other cancers matter, too
  • Update your family health history on a regular basis and let your healthcare provider know about any new cases of breast, ovarian, or other cancers

If you are concerned about your personal or family health history of breast, ovarian, or other cancers, talk to your healthcare provider. Whether or not you have a family health history of breast or ovarian cancer, you can take steps to help lower your risk of breast cancer and ovarian cancer.

Resources

CDC's mobile health app My Family Health Portrait: Cancer Edition (MFHP Cancer) can help you collect your family's history of cancer and understand your risk for breast, ovarian, and colorectal cancers. Android users can download the app from Google Play, and iOS users can download the app from the App Store.

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Content Source:
National Center on Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities (NCBDDD)