What Risk Do My Children Have of Getting Breast Cancer?

— -- Question: What risk do my children have of getting breast cancer?

Answer: If a woman has breast cancer, she's always worried that she's going to pass it on to her children. But in actual fact, most breast cancer is not hereditary; only [in] about 5 percent of breast cancer do you inherit a gene from your mother or your father that gives you a higher risk of breast cancer. So having breast cancer does not automatically mean that your child will also get breast cancer; in a majority of the cases, they won't.

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