Why shouldn’t we give young women gene testing sponsored by the breast cancer fighter Julia Bradbury?

As a former breast cancer surgeon who has had the disease twice, I was drawn to recent reports of a new genetic test that could help determine a woman’s personal risk of breast cancer.

Researchers at the University of Manchester want each woman to be given a simple saliva swab when she turns 30. They said high-risk women could therefore have earlier breast exams, potentially saving 4,000 lives a year.

The idea was supported by Countryfile host and breast cancer survivor Julia Bradbury, 51, who said she would survive a mastectomy if she had access to such a test.

In theory, it looks like an easy win. Major advances in diagnosis and treatment over the past 50 years mean that eight out of ten women are cured of breast cancer, but in the UK alone more than 11,500 die each year.

We are often told that catching him early is vital, so is it better to spot him before he shoots? I doubt.

As we know, there are some genetic errors that can run in families and greatly increase the risk of breast cancer.

These include mutations in the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes — someone who carries them is 60 to 80 percent more likely to develop the condition.

If a woman has a strong family history of breast and ovarian cancer, she may be referred to a genetics clinic and a test may be recommended.

When these genetic mutations are noticed, many women choose to have a preventive mastectomy, which significantly reduces the risk.

Actress Angelina Jolie had surgery in 2013 after discovering she had faulty BRCA genes.

However, some women choose not to have surgery and instead be monitored with regular scans.

There are other genes — eventually more than 110 — that increase a woman’s risk of breast cancer. But we don’t know how many there are, and it’s unlikely that one is as annoying as BRCA errors.

This brings us to my biggest concern: identifying all women at slightly higher risk and getting them regular mammograms from their 30s onwards could do more harm than good.

Julia Bradbury, pictured here, believes she might not need a mastectomy if she had been scanned earlier.

The TV star in the picture is campaigning to give young women access to genetic testing to determine breast cancer risk.

Currently, women between the ages of 50 and 70 are invited every three years for mammography, a type of X-ray. The purpose of this is to collect breast tumors early, while they are still very young. The benefit is that most women only need to remove the lump – a lumpectomy – and keep the breasts. Many will also avoid chemotherapy.

However, mammograms are not very effective in detecting small tumors in younger women.

Women under 50 tend to have dense breasts filled with fibrous, low-fat glandular tissue that appears white on scan. But the tumors are also white, which makes them almost unnoticeable.

There is also the risk that harmless, noncancerous lumps are found and patients will need to undergo biopsy or surgery to rule out the possibility of cancer.

This means that a woman undergoes unnecessary surgery with all the associated risks of infection and scarring.

A suggested solution instead would be to offer MRI scans to younger, high-risk women – these provide a more detailed picture of dense breasts and are currently available to younger women with a BRCA mutation.

But MRI scans are not an easy journey. Compared to a mammogram that takes just a few minutes, an MRI takes around 40 minutes and involves you lying in a narrow tunnel while a dye is injected into a vein.

The whole experience – myself included – can make many women feel uncomfortable and claustrophobic, so offering this screening test to thousands of women each year is not currently possible.

Pictured Angelina Jolie discovered she had a higher genetic risk of developing breast cancer and therefore opted for a double mastectomy.

Julia Bradbury believes that if her tumor had been discovered in its earliest form, she wouldn’t have had to undergo a mastectomy. This may apply to you, but not to everyone. Depending on the size of the tumor, lumpectomy in women with small breasts usually leaves very little tissue and the cosmetic results in patients can be very poor.

Patients in these cases are often advised to undergo a mastectomy with the offer of a surgical reconstruction as it gives them a much better shape.

But what about the claim that 4,000 lives can be saved each year? Apparently that’s not all.

To achieve this, women with red flags in genetic testing should take the drug tamoxifen to reduce their risk.

This lowers levels of estrogen, the female sex hormone, which can stimulate the growth of breast cancers.

Research shows that taking tamoxifen as a preventative measure can reduce the risk of breast cancer in genetically vulnerable women by up to 60%.

But there are huge disadvantages. Tamoxifen puts young women into early menopause, causing all the symptoms: hot flashes, night sweats, mood swings, and painful sex.

I think most women in their 30s and 40s will have a hard time managing this.

I was diagnosed with breast cancer at age 40 and had to take tamoxifen for ten years to keep the cancer from coming back. He was terrible. A good night’s sleep soon became a thing of the past, and terrible night sweats often made me think I’d wet the bed. My libido was also lost and I often thought of quitting the drug. Worse, long-term use is known to increase the risk of uterine cancer.

The unfortunate truth is that for most women, there is little that can be done to prevent breast cancer.

It is my wish that scientists focus on a group that needs urgent attention: the unfortunate women who have fallen ill.

Some have cancers that come back even though the first cancer is detected early. A significant number of them stop responding to treatment, and 31 of these patients die every day.

If we could find something that would increase the chances of this unfortunate few, it would be truly revolutionary.