( Last year in September three sisters Ju...)A Family's Fight against Breast cancer,Health

Last year in September three sisters Julie Owen, Pam Dugmore and Rosemary Moss at the Birmingham Women's Hospital received the results of a test which determined// whether they were carriers of a mutated gene that could have up to an 80 per cent chance of developing breast cancer.

The results revealed that Pam, who is 50, and Julie, 45 carried the mutated gene. Only Rosemary, 64, did not. The sisters were advised to undergo a double mastectomy because of their high risk so as to decrease the likelihood of breast cancer.

There had already been a tragic series of breast cancer cases in the family. One sister, Jennifer, had died from cancer in 1997 and another, Dawn, was in remission. Their grandmother, mother and an aunt on their father's side had all died from the disease.

Around fifteen per cent of breast cancer cases are said to be hereditary. 5 per cent of that has been found to be caused by one of two gene mutations, BRCA1 and BRCA2 that were identified in 1994. There is a 50 per cent chance of the gene being passed from one generation to the next, and affects men as well. The gene causes six per cent of all breast cancers in men, and 16 per cent of all prostate cancers.

When Dawn Fellowes, 47, the women’s sister was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2003, she underwent an immediate lumpectomy and her lymph glands were removed. She said, "I was left with one-and-a-half breasts. They cut the tumor out from the top half of my left breast, leaving a large dent. But at that time I didn't care what they looked like. I just wanted to be cancer free. Two weeks after surgery, they told me I had a particularly aggressive grade-three cancer and that that they had also found it in my lymph glands. The doctor drew a line with life at one end and death at the other. She put me a centimeter from death. That was the worst moment. My son was four years old."

Following six months of chemotherapy and radiotherapy, Dawn's cancer was i
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