Women ignore breast cancer on dad's side

A U.S. study finds that when women tell doctors about their family breast cancer history they are less likely to report cancer in their father's families.

John Quillin and his colleagues at Virginia Commonwealth University tracked 900 women who were patients at a city health clinic, WebMD reported. They found that 16 percent of the women mentioned relatives on their mother's side with breast cancer but only 10 percent reported cancer among paternal relatives.

"Patients may not know that paternal family history is also relevant for their health," Quillin and his colleagues said in a report in the Journal of Preventive Medicine. "Primary care physicians might pay particular attention to getting information about the father's side of the family."

Copyright 2006 by United Press International