Genetic Screening of Familial Mutation of Brca 1/2 in African American Women and Importance of Client Education

Breast cancer is one of the most frequent diseases that affect women.     It is estimated that a woman, on average, has a 10% risk of being affected by breast cancer in her lifetime (Bouchard et al., 2004) – a shockingly high incidence rate that may be even higher in certain ethnic groups (Edwards et al., 2008).   Although many factors can influence the onset of the disease, such as age, reproductive history or environmental factors, family history is the most important risk factor.  
In the study entitled “Association between temporal orientation and attitudes about BRCA1/2 testing among women of African descent with family histories of breast cancer”, Edwards et al. (Edwards, et al., 2008) investigated whether temporal orientation has a positive effect on genetic testing attitudes among African American women. This study also examined the relationship between temporal orientation and health-related impact of the testing. This study suggests that patient who receives education on temporal orientation would result in likelihood of participating in genetic testing for breast cancer.
The pattern of inheritance of mutated BRCA 1/2 shows an extremely high incidence of familial breast cancer amongst mothers and daughters and sisters (Morgan, Sylvester, Lucas, & Miesfeldt, 2009).   Female carriers of the mutated genes are 80% at risk of developing breast cancer (McKinnon, Naud, Ashikaga, Colletti, & Wood, 2007). Therefore, it is particularly important to educate women who are at risk for hereditary breast cancer to do genetic screening at an earlier age to prevent or/and treat the breast cancer. African American women are more prone to hereditary breast cancer and are more likely to be present-oriented (Hughes Halbert et al., 2007), thus this study aimed to examine this particular minority group and to study how cancer prevention and control behavior could be improved by educating patients with temporal orientation the clients. One hundred forty subjects who had a... [continues]

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