This Breast Cancer Gene Is Less Well Known, but Nearly as Dangerous

PALB2 is not as well known as BRCA, but mutations of the gene can raise a woman’s risk for breast cancer almost as much.

For years, women with breast cancer in their families have been getting tested for mutations in two genes, known as BRCA1 and BRCA2, to determine whether they have a sharply elevated risk of the disease. Now, doctors are increasingly recommending that anyone who was tested before 2014 go through genetic testing again — to look for a different mutation, one much less widely known. It’s on a gene called PALB2, and people who have the mutation have almost as great a risk of getting breast cancer as those who have the BRCA mutations. Like the BRCA mutations, this mutation also increases a patient’s risk of ovarian and pancreatic cancer.