The Oscar-winning actress has revealed she underwent a double mastectomy after learning she carried the BRCA1 gene mutation, and being advised by doctors she had an 87% chance of developing breast cancer.
The Hunter Medical Research Institute is about to begin a study using Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) to detect pre-malignant molecular changes in breast tissue.
If the method proves effective it would allow women at high risk to undergo regular MRI scans, allowing them to delay or even avoid having their breasts removed.
Dr Steve Ackland, chair of the cancer research program at the institute, told 1233 ABC Newcastle's Jill Emberson a team is currently being put together and will soon start recruiting women at high risk of breast cancer for the study.
"What we're doing here is trying to develop mechanisms whereby we can predict which women at a high risk are likely to develop breast cancer, because not all of them do, and try and estimate when they develop breast cancer," he says.
Dr Ackland says the hope is they will be able to reassure women from families at high risk of the disease that there's currently no change in their breasts that indicate they'll get cancer any time soon.
The women would then have tests at regular intervals and would only be advised to consider a double mastectomy if changes were detected.
The MRI would pick up such changes long before they presented as a lump or were detectable by a mammogram.
The researchers are hoping they'll be able to use the same technique to test the women's ovaries.
If the study is successful, the new testing method could be available to women within two to three years.
Dr Ackland applauds Angelina Jolie's decision to go public with her experience.
"We have got to congratulate Angelina for making such a brave decision," he says.
"I'm sure she spent a lot of time thinking about it and researching about it and getting advice about it.
"It's potentially a life-changing decision, at her relatively young age she's needed to question her own mortality."
Around 15,000 women are expected to be diagnosed with breast cancer in Australia this year. Of those, approximately five to 10 percent are related to faulty genes.
Research has shown that of women who find out they have a gene mutation for breast cancer, about 20% choose to have their breasts removed.
Unlike the United States, where testing for the mutation costs $3000, in Australia it is covered by Medicare, as is the double mastectomy for women at high risk.
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