Search

PURPOSE To estimate the risk of contralateral breast cancer (CBC) among women with germline pathogenic variants (PVs) in ATM, BRCA1, BRCA2, CHEK2, and PALB2. METHODS The study population included 15,104 prospectively followed women within the CARRIERS study treated with ipsilateral surgery for invasive breast cancer. The risk of CBC was estimated for PV carriers in each gene compared with women without PVs in a multivariate proportional hazard regression analysis accounting for the competing risk of death and adjusting for patient and tumor characteristics. The primary analyses focused on the overall cohort and on women from the general population. Secondary analyses examined associations by race/ethnicity, age at primary breast cancer diagnosis, menopausal status, and tumor estrogen receptor (ER) status. RESULTS Germline BRCA1, BRCA2, and CHEK2 PV carriers with breast cancer were at significantly elevated risk (hazard ratio > 1.9) of CBC, whereas only the PALB2 PV carriers with ER-negative breast cancer had elevated risks (hazard ratio, 2.9). By contrast, ATM PV carriers did not have significantly increased CBC risks. African American PV carriers had similarly elevated risks of CBC as non-Hispanic White PV carriers. Among premenopausal women, the 10-year cumulative incidence of CBC was estimated to be 33% for BRCA1, 27% for BRCA2, and 13% for CHEK2 PV carriers with breast cancer and 35% for PALB2 PV carriers with ER-negative breast cancer. The 10-year cumulative incidence of CBC among postmenopausal PV carriers was 12% for BRCA1, 9% for BRCA2, and 4% for CHEK2. CONCLUSION Women diagnosed with breast cancer and known to carry germline PVs in BRCA1, BRCA2, CHEK2, or PALB2 are at substantially increased risk of CBC and may benefit from enhanced surveillance and risk reduction strategies.

Purpose: The identification of variants of uncertain significance (VUS) in the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes by hereditary cancer testing poses great challenges for the clinical management of variant carriers. The ACMG/AMP (American College of Medical Genetics and Genomics/Association for Molecular Pathology) variant classification framework, which incorporates multiple sources of evidence, has the potential to establish the clinical relevance of many VUS. We sought to classify the clinical relevance of 133 single-nucleotide substitution variants encoding missense variants in the DNA-binding domain (DBD) of BRCA2 by incorporating results from a validated functional assay into an ACMG/AMP-variant classification model from a hereditary cancer–testing laboratory. Experimental Design: The 133 selected VUS were evaluated using a validated homology-directed double-strand DNA break repair (HDR) functional assay. Results were combined with clinical and genetic data from variant carriers in a rules-based variant classification model for BRCA2. Results: Of 133 missense variants, 44 were designated as non-functional and 89 were designated as functional in the HDR assay. When combined with genetic and clinical information from a single diagnostic laboratory in an ACMG/AMP-variant classification framework, 66 variants previously classified by the diagnostic laboratory were correctly classified, and 62 of 67 VUS (92.5%) were reclassified as likely pathogenic (n = 22) or likely benign (n = 40). In total, 44 variants were classified as pathogenic/likely pathogenic, 84 as benign/likely benign, and 5 remained as VUS. Conclusions: Incorporation of HDR functional analysis into an ACMG/AMP framework model substantially improves BRCA2 VUS re-classification and provides an important tool for determining the clinical relevance of individual BRCA2 VUS.