Calls for new £2,000 breast cancer test to be available on the NHS

Women with a family history of breast cancer like film star Angelina Jolie are being offered a pioneering test.

The new gene check is many times more sensitive than existing screening and could increase detection rates by 50 per cent.

The London Breast Institute is one of the first clinics to offer the test. It can analyse 25 genes associated with eight cancers, including breast — the most common cancer diagnosed in UK women — and ovarian. Current checks only look for one or two associated genes.

Professor Kefah Mokbel today called for the £2,000 check, which is not available on the NHS, to become the “gold standard” for women with a “significant” family history of breast and ovarian cancer. The consultant said: “This cost-effective, multi-gene test allows doctors to increase the rate of detecting mutations in patients at an increased risk of developing cancer due to a strong family history or who have hereditary cancer syndromes.”

Ms Jolie, 39, had both breasts removed last year after discovering she had a mutation in the BRCA1 gene.

The check, which can detect BRCA abnormalities, is for women who have not been diagnosed with cancer. But it is also suitable for women who have the disease and want to know their ongoing risk. Claire Horner, a nurse from Richmond, is about to undergo the test after her breast cancer returned four times. Her grandmother was diagnosed with the disease in her sixties.

The mother-of-two, who is in her forties, said: “If the test can reduce the chance of it coming back it’s a no-brainer. It’s empowering and could reduce the stress that I wouldn’t want to put my family through again.”