Mr. Martin O'Sullivan:

I can take that question. No, there was no suggestion that family history was not relevant. What I was saying at that time was that there are more important factors, such as alcohol intake, weight gain and perhaps HRT, that would increase the risk. Conversely, exercise and diet will reduce the risk of breast cancer. These are particularly important elements because they are modifiable risk factors, that is, people have control over them. The family history scenario is critically important for those who do have a family history in this regard. We can categorise these patients as being at moderate risk, high risk and high risk with a high chance of being a gene carrier or a proven gene carrier. There are two genes of interest in particular, namely, BRCA1 and BRCA2, and they result in an 80% to 85% chance of breast cancer being developed over the course of a lifetime. A strategy is in place to look after those women. They have significant needs involving counselling, genetics and gynaecology services, as well as the breast services. A group has been formed by the NCCP to try to look after those women. We are trying to standardise that kind of scenario in the family history programme.