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Hello,
I'm Doctor Jeffrey Weitzel.
I'm a Medical Oncologist
and a Clinical Geneticist
at the City of Hope
Cancer Center
in Duarte, California.
I'm going to speak today
about the Genetics of Breast
and Ovarian Cancer.
I have a long relationship
with the topic
because I was first involved
in gynecologic oncology
at Tufts University in Boston
and later in clinical genetics
and subsequently
in the translational science
of bringing
genetics to oncology.
So first, when I talk about
genetics of breast
and ovarian cancer,
we need to keep in mind
the concept
of all the different risks
that are related
to breast cancer.
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There are many factors
associated with breast cancer,
some are well established.
This puzzle
helps us to understand
all the different factors
that might be involved.
Many are classic epidemiologic
risk factors.
But of course,
I'm interested in genetics,
and so we'll talk
more about genetics
and its influence in cancer.
This goes back some time
in that there's a lot of
very important perspectives
of cancer and genetics
that are often overlooked,
but are emphasized
in the context of cancerous
counseling.
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1993, just really
at the height of the hunt
for the breast cancer gene.
I'll talk about
in the timeline in a moment.
BRCA1 gene was first localized
several years earlier,
so this really talks about
the human factor,
which is the concept
of here's a mother
who suffered breast cancer,
here's a daughter
who understands she's at risk
and has chosen
to have a mastectomy,
and yet there is still
transgenerational concern
about this
individual's daughter.
So I think
is a very evocative perspective
and it really colors
our entirety of how we look at
cancer and genetics.
For many of the patients
we take care of,
from their perspective,
it's not a matter of if,
but when they will get cancer.
Yet genetics can help us
to determine
when that's really the case.
