WCAX.COM Local Vermont News, Weather and Sports-Should parents tell kids they may carry cancer gene?

Rivervale, New Jersey - January 20, 2012

Laura McSpirit-Grier has the BRCA gene which puts her at very high risk for breast cancer. She's most worried about what that means for her 14-year-old daughter, Summer.

"That she's going to inherit the gene and have to go through what I had to go through," Laura said.

After her twin sister, aunt and cousin developed breast cancer, Laura chose to have her breasts and ovaries removed.

She says she never questioned letting her daughter know about her genetics.

"I needed to tell my daughter that she could possibly have the gene," Laura said.

A new study finds Laura did what most parents do. Researchers in Philadelphia looked at more than 253 parents who had genetic breast cancer testing and found that 66 percent shared their results with their kids.

"Some of the children were quite young at the time that they received this information from their parents," said Dr. Freya Schnabel of NYU Langone Medical Center.

There's a 50-50 chance women with the BRCA gene mutation will pass it onto their children. Most doctors don't want to test those children until they're in their twenties.

"It's not meaningful for the child, so we shouldn't subject the child to something that isn't constructive for them," Schnabel said.

Summer plans to be tested when she's older.

"It might worry me if I know that I have it, but I would rather have the knowledge that I can help save myself," Summer said.

Now that doctors can isolate these genes, this mother and daughter are hoping scientists will find a way to silence them.

It's estimated that about 10 percent of all breast cancers are related to BRCA gene mutations.