[Information to families with hereditary breast and ovarian cancer]

Under Norwegian legislation, persons at risk should make the initial contact with the proper health personnel, and not vice versa. It may be argued that the physician should be allowed to make contact with persons at risk of preventable or curable disorders.

We identified all first-degree relatives of all 75 BRCA1 mutation carriers diagnosed within a given period of time and asked them whether or not they had been informed by their relatives.

After two years, 60/63 (95%) adult sisters and daughters had made contact with us; the remaining three (5%) had been informed. In comparison, 18/45 (40%) adult brothers and sons had contacted us.

The legislation constituted no barrier to offering health services to the target group. Information on our services had reached all close relatives who could benefit from them. This may be representative for curable inherited disorders. We examined inherited cancer limited to females; similar studies on inherited cancers in males and on other curable inherited disorders should be performed. Outside the framework of the present study, we are aware of rare examples of distant cousins who have not been properly informed through their families. One legally acceptable way of identifying mutation carrier families is to test all patients with breast or ovarian cancer for causative mutations. Health services should be monitored to make future decisions based on empirical evidence.