“The Breast Cancer Gene and Me”
Elisa Port, chief of breast surgery at the Mount Sinai Hospital and co-director of the Dubin Breast Center, comments on BRCA testing, in this article about one woman’s journey with breast cancer and learning she has the BRCA mutation.
One in 40 Ashkenazi Jews is BRCA-positive. “A large percentage of women who have the gene would not have been eligible to be tested,” said Elisa Port, chief of breast surgery at Mount Sinai Medical Center, co-director of the Dubin Breast Center and author of “The New Generation Breast Cancer Book.” “Anyone can be tested if you are willing to pay for it. For most insurance companies, you cannot get tested just on the basis of being an Ashkenazi Jew. Now the push is toward testing Ashkenazi Jews, because the hit rate is above 2 percent.” As Dr. Port said on National Public Radio, however early a BRCA-related breast cancer is detected, it is “associated with the risk of death.” Learn more