New clues to breast cancer development in high-risk women

Physicians who treat women with the breast cancer susceptibility gene BRCA1 often remove their patients’ ovaries to eliminate the source of estrogen they believe fuels cancer growth. Yet they also know that anti-estrogen therapies don't work to treat breast or ovarian cancer that might develop. That paradox has led scientists to question exactly how, or if, estrogen is involved in cancer development and whether removal of ovaries makes sense.