NOT MUCH IN LIFE is harder than watching a sister endure illness, and too many of us have either suffered ourselves or helped another through the long journey of breast cancer. Now there’s another way to help your sisters. If you have a sister who’s experienced breast cancer, the Sister Study may be looking for you.
Sponsored by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, a division of the National Institutes of Health, the landmark Sister Study will follow 50,000 women between the ages of 35 and 74 who have a sister who has been diagnosed with breast cancer.
The goal of the study is to further understanding of the genetic behavior of the disease, and to learn how environment and genes may affect the chances of getting breast cancer. This is the only long-term study of its kind in the United States and Puerto Rico. Most of the subjects for the study are signed up, but some demographic groups are still underrepresented, and desperately needed.
If you or someone you know is in the following groups, and has been diagnosed with breast cancer, you may be eligible to participate in the Sister Study.
- African Americans, Latinas, Asians and Pacific Islanders, and Native Americans between ages 35-74.
- Caucasian women between the ages of 65-74 or with a high school degree or less.
To find out if you meet the study’s eligibility requirements, you can visit this site, or call 1-877-4SISTER.
A companion study is also under way, funded by Susan G. Komen for the Cure, and the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences. The “Two Sister Study,” an offshoot of the Sister Study, will focus on sisters who develop the disease before age 50. Though young-onset breast cancer is uncommon, a better of understanding it should reveal a great deal about genetic and environmental causes. The study plans to enroll up to 2,000 recently diagnosed young women whose sisters are already participating in the original Sister Study. Parents will also be invited to participate, to expand the genetic data available for research.–Paige Smith Orloff
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