Screening with magnetic resonance imaging, mammography and ultrasound in women at average and intermediate risk of breast cancer.

Background: The addition of MRI to mammography and ultrasound for breast cancer screening has been shown to improve screening sensitivity for high risk women, but there is little data to date for women at average or intermediate risk.

Methods: Two thousand nine hundred and ninety-five women, aged 40 to 65 years with no previous history of breast cancer were enrolled in a screening program, which consisted of two rounds of MRI, ultrasound and mammography, one year apart. Three hundred and fifty-six women had a mutation, 370 women had a first-degree relative with breast cancer (and no mutation) and 2269 women had neither risk factor.

A high proportion of founder BRCA1 mutations in Polish breast cancer families.

Three mutations in BRCA1 (5382insC, C61G and 4153delA) are common in Poland and account for the majority of mutations identified to date in Polish breast and breast-ovarian cancer families. It is not known, however, to what extent these 3 founder mutations account for all of the BRCA mutations distributed throughout the country. This question has important implications for health policy and the design of epidemiologic studies.