Daughters At Risk When Father Has Breast Cancer

Posting Date: 04/08/1999

Male breast cancer is relatively rare, but when it exists there is increased risk of the disease showing up in female offspring.

Three recent cases of breast cancer occurring in young daughters of Danish men with the disease was reported in The Lancet. Researchers say other data from the Swedish Family Cancer Database found 11 breast tumors in daughters of 463 men with breast cancer. There were no cases where sons of men with breast cancer got the disease.

The researchers say familial breast cancer in men closely resembles female breast cancer in magnitude of risk and early onset. This means the relative risk of daughters getting the disease goes down with age.

In studies of families where both the husband and wife have breast cancer, the relative risk is high for daughters to get the disease, the researchers add.

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