The effect of the medical family history of breast cancer extends to your whole immediate family.
A medical family history of breast cancer in one relative means you are twice as likely to develop it yourself.
A medical family record in two or more relatives means your chances of developing such cancer are quadrupled.
   If you have a male relative with a different form of cancer, you are also more at risk for developing breast cancer.
As much as 30% of women with breast cancer have at least one relative with some form of cancer.
   An example of the medical family record of cancer is a family where the father had fatal lung cancer, the daughter then succumbed to ovarian cancer and the mother eventually died of stomach cancer.
This is a very tragic example of how in rare cases, cancer can devastate an entire family.
   Research has shown that several risk factors exist for cancer.
Parents can pass on mutated genes to their children that increase their risk of developing cancer including the BRCA1 and BRAC2 genes.
These genes are in all of us and are meant to stop people from getting cancer by preventing cells from changing in abnormal ways.
   Having a mutated version of these genes, though, means you are more likely to end up with breast cancer of ovarian cancer.
Approximately 10% of the women in the United States have these mutated genes, raising their risk of developing cancer.
Women with breast cancer in one breast are likely to end up with cancer in the other breast as well.
   A lot of people have a family history that makes them more likely to develop certain diseases.
The chances that this applies to you are small but there are instances in which medical family history affects people in this way.
That is why your doctor needs to know your full medical family record.