And I think very often in general practice and probably in life as well, we do what we can with the information that we have and we try and make the best decision that’s available. BECAUSE OF THE RISK OF MISHEARING AND THE DIFFICULTY IN SOME CASES OF IDENTIFYING INDIVIDUAL SPEAKERS, THE BBC CANNOT VOUCH FOR ITS COMPLETE ACCURACY. The report indicated that regular sucking of the breast lowers the risk level. The moderate lifetime risks, so that’s higher than normal but not as high as high, is between 17 and 30%, again lifetime risk, up to the age of 90. In addition, my mother’s sister, so I have an aunt. The categories could improve treatment by tailoring drugs for a patient's exact type of breast cancer and help predict survival more accurately. So, that what we call the calibration is extremely accurate, extremely good. That process is expected to take three to five years.

Full article Daily news briefing direct to your inbox. So yes, there’s a breakdown in communication perhaps, where people in the prevention field haven’t disseminated the information to GPs, so they’re not as used to using drugs for cancer prevention. Sam, can you clarify exactly how these drugs are prescribed?

However, their reaction to treatment varies wildly. Read about our approach to external linking. A Department of Health spokesperson said: "We are always looking at new ways to improve outcomes for cancer patients and that is why we are investing more than £750m to make sure people are diagnosed with cancer earlier and have better access to the latest treatments.

So, we rely on women who think that they’re at high risk or at moderately high risk to attend with their GP and ask for a referral on.

But because – it’s like a pack of cards, you can deal the pack of cards and you get a good deal, some people get lots of aces and kings and queens in their pack, the other people actually get the poorer cards. But what about the women out there who aren’t even coming along to see their doctor, we’re not even getting to them at the moment are we?

The good news is that we have information back on your mammogram and your mammogram showed the predominant tissue in your breast is actually fatty tissue rather than glandular tissue. THE ATTACHED TRANSCRIPT WAS TYPED FROM A RECORDING AND NOT COPIED FROM AN ORIGINAL SCRIPT. Erika produces Inside Health and we have worked together for years.

If you knew you were definitely going to get breast cancer, apart from going down other routes such as prophylactic surgery, then I think you may be more likely to consider tamoxifen.

But there are also side effects that have to be added into the mix as well. And there are links to Sam’s study, the latest NICE guidance on breast cancer prevention, and more information on breast density and SNPs on the Inside Health page of the Radio 4 website. 3 June 2018.

Similar studies could break other cancers down into several separate diseases, but the effects of personalised medicine could be much wider. And that is a drug that could potentially prevent breast cancer in some of those women. But the majority of people who are being sent along to clinics like yours will be sent there because of family history, I mean that’s one of the risk factors that drives people in and yet they won’t be offered – currently – won’t be offered this SNP test, which is probably the one thing they should get. "We look forward to seeing the future results of this ongoing work and will continue to work with Cancer Research UK to find the best possible way to improve outcomes for people with breast cancer.". Inside Health’s Dr Margaret McCartney: The NICE guidelines offered something really different for women who were considered to be at moderate or high risk of breast cancer. What we currently call breast cancer should be thought of as 10 completely separate diseases, according to a study which has been described as a landmark moment for treatment. "Breast cancer is not one disease, but 10 different diseases," said lead researcher Prof Carlos Caldas. The latest findings give the breast cancer map far more detail, allowing you to find individual "countries". And actually, that’s a very substantial reduction. When you think about all the clinical trials that are done for new drugs for cancer and they are very much pushed by pharma, it’s more the individual academics and the clinicians that push these types of trials because the pharma companies won’t make the money because we’ve got to use the drugs that are made by generic manufacturers. And NICE makes some quite helpful distinctions between what is normal risk, moderate risk and high risk and they talk about the lifetime risk of breast cancer, the chances of a woman developing a breast cancer in her lifetime, usually taken to be till the age of 90 years. And given that tamoxifen, sometimes referred to as the statin of the breast cancer world, can reduce their risk by as much as a third, why are so few women taking it? Patients want to have that put in context. Thankfully they’re doing okay on treatment.

In terms of treatments, there is bad news.

The hope is that by identifying the 10 breast cancers it will be possible for researchers to design drugs for each one, but that is still a work in progress. If you’re a healthy person, just with an increased risk, no certainty that you’re going to get breast cancer but an increased risk of it, that is a very hard thing to grapple with.

And then, like many drugs, that prescription, once initiated, once begun, is then continued on by the GP and that’s because GPs are generalists, we don’t have specialised knowledge of everything, and we rely on our hospital colleagues to help make those specialist decisions. Breast cancer screening programme 'does more harm than good' 5 May 2018. So, back at Professor Evan’s clinic, what hand has Erika been dealt? He estimates that for every 1000 women given tamoxifen there would be 20 fewer breast cancers, but there would also be three more womb cancers and six more cases of deep vein thrombosis.

What we currently call breast cancer should be thought of as 10 completely separate diseases, according to an international study which has been described as a "landmark". Yeah and I think there’s been some work done that suggests that if the tamoxifen is actually started in hospitals then GPs are more happy to carry on prescribing but they’re a bit more reluctant to prescribe it up front, to do that first prescription.