A MUM and daughter were the first and youngest women to receive a preventative mastectomy after breast cancer riddled their family.
Wendy Watson MBE and her daughter Becky Measures, who feared for their lives, now dedicate their lives to raising awareness of inherited or genetic cancer.
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A whopping six of Wendy’s relatives have died of cancer, with more found in family history records, and a further three have been diagnosed and survived.
A mastectomy is an operation to remove the breast in those with breast cancer.
But some women at high risk of breast cancer choose to have a mastectomy even when there’s no sign of cancer, known as prophylactic mastectomy.
It’s the same op that actress Angelina Jolie had in 2013, aged 37, after learning she had the BRCA1 gene – now dubbed the ‘Angelina Jolie gene’.
Wendy, 68, who was awarded an MBE for her charity work, lost her mum to breast cancer when she was 16.
Six years earlier she had also lost her grandmother, Evelyn, to ovarian cancer aged 67.
It was then that she started to question if the disease could be hereditary.
But the teenager was told it was impossible when she quizzed her GP about it.
Twenty years later, a chance meeting in a pub in the Peak District with a long-lost relative made her question the idea again.
She recalled: “I bumped into the husband of my mum’s cousin’s daughter Jennifer one night and we got talking.
“He told me she’d had breast cancer twice – once at 32 and once at 39.
“Her sister had died at 38, her mum had just got it in her 60s, her aunty had got it in her 40s and her cousin had also just got it in her 40s.
“It was realistic that I should have been concerned. So I went to a new GP and said, ‘Don’t tell me this is not hereditary, I know it is’.
“That was early 1992, I was 37 years old and a young mum living in fear that any day I was going to be diagnosed with breast cancer.”
Taking action
Wendy started thinking about ways she could protect herself from the disease that had wrecked so many relatives’ lives.
“The doctor said he’d check me every three months,” Wendy said.
“But that used to scare the living daylights out of me because I kept thinking, ‘Is this going to be the time that they find a lump?’”
It was at this point that Wendy, who had traced breast cancer back to her great, great, great, great, great grandmother, had a lightbulb moment.
She said: “I decided I might as well have the surgery now and then I wouldn’t need to worry about it anymore.”
It was the early 1990s, and doctors were just discovering genetics that put women more at risk of breast and ovarian cancer (the BRCA gene mutation).
It’s estimated that between three and five in every 1,000 people carry a fault in BRCA1 or BRCA2, according to Cancer Research UK.
A woman carrying a faulty version of a BRCA gene has around a 70 per cent chance of developing breast cancer and 17 to 44 per cent chance of ovarian cancer by the age of 80, compared with around 12 and two per cent chance in the general population.
‘People were shocked’
But Wendy was not aware of her genetics at this stage, and had to convince the doctors and surgeons that removing her breasts was the right thing to do based on her family history alone.
She says: “I had the operation on April 21, 1993.
“People were utterly shocked, and it wasn’t easy to get it signed off but the day I woke up from the surgery I was overjoyed. I wasn’t living in fear anymore.”
Charity Breast Cancer Now says it is unclear when the NHS first brought in preventative mastectomies, but that uptake was triggered by BRCA testing from 1995.
Prevent Breast Cancer said Wendy’s op is the first they have heard of.
A paper published in the British Medical Journal reported a surge in mastectomies in women without breast cancer in the 2000s, from 71 women in 2002 to 255 in 2011.
Preventative mastectomies were later found to reduce the risk of breast cancer by 90 to 95 per cent.
97 per cent of people who carry a breast cancer gene don’t know
Becky Measures
Wendy was tested for the BRCA1 gene and it returned positive.
Her determination to prevent herself from getting ill with cancer is then what led to an entire life dedicated to the cause.
It has included fighting in courts for laws to be passed on gene patents, getting parliament approval of NICE guidelines for testing, and fighting for women all over the UK who are struggling to get their doctors to agree to preventative surgery.
Her hard work saw her awarded an MBE in 2012.
Her daugher Becky Measures, 42, has followed in her footsteps.
The radio presenter, who lives just outside of Sheffield, underwent a mastectomy and reconstruction when she was just 24 in 2006.
The mum-of-two said: “At that time I was the youngest person in the UK to have the surgery.”
Who in Wendy’s family has died of breast cancer?
- Wendy’s mum died in her mid-40s
- Wendy’s grandmother Evelyn died aged 67
- Wendy’s cousin Helen was diagnosed at age 29 but survived
- Wendy’s second cousin Jennifer, Helen’s mum, had it twice at ages 32 and 39 but survived it
- Wendy’s second cousin, Jennifer’s sister, died aged 38
- Wendy’s third cousin, Jennifer’s cousin, died aged 46
- Her grandmother’s cousin Lilian died in her 60s
- Her grandmother’s cousin Hilda was diagnosed in her 40s but survived
- Her mum’s cousin Jean died aged 57
- She traced further deaths going back to a great great great great great grandmother in 1879
Both women also underwent ovary removal to prevent ovarian cancer, with Wendy having a full hysterectomy just one year after her mastectomy and Becky undergoing an oophorectomy two years ago.
Becky was told she was at risk of ovarian cancer when she was trying for her second baby, and the removal of her ovaries would have removed any chance of more kids.
“I felt stuck between keeping on trying or removing the ovaries,” she said.
“I decided to freeze my eggs, but on the day I got the letter through about my appointment I discovered I was pregnant.”
Becky had the surgery in 2021, recalling: “The surgery wasn’t a problem but the consequence of having it is instant menopause and that was awful. It hit me straight away.
“They put me on HRT patches and progesterone in a coil but that wasn’t enough.
“I was having the hot flushes and then this awful anxiety which I’d never had before. It was a tough time.”
Angelina Jolie and the BRCA1 gene
No two people are born the same, so we all have slightly different chances of developing diseases throughout our lives.
This is the result of natural variation in our genes.
But on top of this, about one in 1,000 people inherit a damaged copy of a BRCA1 gene from one of their parents, meaning their chance of developing breast cancer is much higher than average.
Families that carry these gene faults usually have a long history of breast and/or ovarian cancer.
However, only about one in 20 of the 55,000 women diagnosed with breast cancer every year in the UK carries an inherited gene fault like BRCA1.
Most breast cancers arise from genetic damage that accumulates over a person’s lifetime (that’s why age is the biggest risk factor).
The average woman in the UK has a 12.5 per cent chance of developing breast cancer at some point in her life, but this shoots up to between 60 and 90 per cent for a woman carrying the BRCA1 gene.
They also have an around 40 to 60 per cent chance of ovarian cancer.
In 2013, actress Angelina Jolie was told she had an 87 per cent chance of breast cancer and a 50 per cent risk of ovarian cancer due to the gene mutation.
Her mum Marcheline Bertrand died from ovarian cancer aged 56.
Writing in the New York Times, Angelina said: “Once I knew that this was my reality, I decided to be proactive and to minimise the risk as much I could.
“Life comes with many challenges. The ones that should not scare us are the ones we can take on and take control of.”
She underwent a precautionary double mastectomy to reduce her risk to around five per cent. She also had a hysterectomy.
Source: Cancer Research UK and the New York Times
Thankfully. Becky is on the other side of it and she and Wendy have just started a podcast, Breast of Friends.
Through that, they discovered “the terrifying statistic that 97 per cent of people who carry a breast cancer gene don’t know”.
Becky says: “We are finding that there are lots of medical professionals making leaps and bounds in aiding prevention, but can’t get the word out. And that’s where we come in.
Read more on the Scottish Sun
“Our mantra is ‘know your risk and don’t risk it’. One in 200 people have a gene mutation so if somebody in your family had prostate cancer or breast cancer at a young age you might be at risk.
“There are options if you test positive. To be screened frequently, drugs such as Tamoxifen, which reduces risk by up to 50 per cent, and surgery of which there is now an absolute multitude of options.”
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Who can get a genetic cancer test?
Testing for genes that increase the risk of cancer is called predictive genetic testing.
You may be eligible for an NHS genetic test if there is a strong family history of cancer and you are worried you may get it too, or if an inherited faulty gene has been found in a relative.
The test can tell you whether you have inherited a faulty gene that increases your risk of cancer.
A positive result means you have an increased risk of developing cancer. But it doesn’t mean that you have cancer or will definitely develop it.
If your GP refers you to a genetic clinic, a specialist will first look at the details of your family history and work out if you need a genetic test.
They may tell you that it’s unlikely that you have an inherited faulty gene. In this case, your risk of cancer is the same as other members of the population.
The genetic counsellor will tell you the advantages and disadvantages of having a test if you are eligible – some people decide not to have the test as they do not want to know their risk.
Your options will also be discussed with you, such as the potential of risk reduction surgery.
No test can tell if you will get cancer or not, including the genetic tests that you can pay for privately.
Find out more on Cancer Research UK website.