Volunteers urged to enrol in 50-year breast cancer study

Tens of thousands of women are being urged to take part in a 50-year study designed to better understand the causes of breast cancer – a disease which kills around 13,000 women every year.

Currently, around 40,000 women are diagnosed with breast cancer each year in the UK and around 35 women die from this disease each day. Medical experts believe that if the causes of the disease were better understood, then it may prevent 20,000 diagnoses annually.

The Breakthrough Generations Study, a joint effort by Breakthrough Breast Cancer, the UK's leading breast cancer charity, and The Institute of Cancer Research, one of the world's leading cancer research organisations, aims to examine the genetic, environmental, behavioural and hormonal factors thought to influence the risk of developing what is the UK's most common cancer in women.

Spanning nearly half a century, the study aims to enrol more than 100,000 UK women aged 18 and over from all walks of life to join the study. Any woman living in Britain can take part.

Each woman will be asked to fill in a questionnaire about themselves and their lifestyles and give a blood sample. The study will then keep in touch with them about their health and collect further information from them in the years to come, in order to relate future cancer risks to changes in lifestyle and to events occurring throughout a woman's life.

Known as a cohort study, this type of study has given the main evidence for most of the causes of cancer we know, such as smoking and lung cancer, and asbestos and cancer of the pleura (lining of the lung).

Celebrities taking part include: actresses Michelle Collins, Meera Syal, Angela Griffin, Jill Halfpenny, Pam St Clements; Michelle Ryan; British soprano Lesley Garrett, BBC newsreaders Fiona Bruce and Katie Derham; and TV presenters Tara Palmer-Tomkinson, Gail Porter, Jayne Middlemiss, Lowri Turner and Jenni Falconer.

Professor Anthony Swerdlow, Head of Epidemiology at The Institute of Cancer Research, said: "Breast cancer is the most common cancer in women in this country and sadly it leads to many thousands of deaths each year. It is important that we find its causes so that future cases can be prevented. The causation of breast cancer is complicated, however, and to help to unravel these complexities the study will therefore need to include very large numbers of women and to continue over many years."

Anyone interested in taking part in The Breakthrough Generations Study can visit www.breakthroughgenerations.org.uk or telephone 0870 242 4485 to request further information.

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