How Does Family History Affect Ovarian Cancer?

So, two ways, one, if you just have a first degree relative, a sister or a mum or a daughter who has ovarian cancer, your risk of ovarian cancer goes up. From about one and a half percent, 1.5% to about 4%. The other way family history ties in, is that it helps us identify inherited predispositions that have a really high risk. So there is breast ovarian cancer syndrome what we call BRCA, changes in the BRCA gene increases the risk for breast and ovary cancer from 10 to 40%, so really high. And then there's something called a lynch syndrome which is inherited genetic change that predisposes people to colon cancer, to uterine cancer and to ovary cancer, and so both of those, if we could identify people who had that inherited predisposition position, we could work to prevent their cancer from happening. So a real important area to try and identify people who have that risk.