The Breast Cancer Gene: a Woman's Dilemma

Cancer stalks the women in Anna Fisher's family. Her grandmother died of "female cancer" -- probably ovarian -- in the 1940s. When Fisher was five, her mother developed breast cancer. After having a mastectomy, the mother survived for a decade, only to die from cancer originating in the other breast. Fisher also has a maternal aunt who had ovarian tumors, and five cousins contracted breast cancer. Malignancy is simply part of her pedigree.

So it was no big surprise, though still a shock, when in 1990 doctors found she had ovarian cancer. Thanks to aggressive surgery and intensive chemotherapy, Fisher, a...