1997 Volume 6 Issue 2 Pages 263-270
Recently several kinds of gene related to breast cancer have been identified. These are BRCA1, BRCA2, and the ataxia-telangiectasia mutation gene (ATM). These discoveries raise some issues related to screening MMG, i. e. that persons heterogeneous for ATM may have a higher risk of breast cancer incidence, and also higher radiosensitivity than the general population. Investigations were carried out to clarify the following three issues: 1) Can radiation injury occur to an ATM-hetero person through screening MMG ? 2) Provided that an ATM-hetero person is screened by MMG, what will be the risk-benefit ratio of mass screening for this high-risk group ? 3) What will be the risk-benefit ratio when mass screening is performed on persons other than this high-risk group ? From the present study, the following conclusions were obtained: 1) Screening MMG does not cause radiation injury to an ATM-hetero person. However, quality control which guarantees the upper limit of the radiation dose is necessary because there are large variations in the radiation dose for screening MMG. 2) Screening of breast cancer for the ATM-hetero group by MMG is more effective than in the general population due to the higher incidence of breast cancer. 3) Screening MMG for the remaining population other than the ATM-hetero group has almost the same risk-benefit ratio as that for the general population.
