Jewish BRCA
Jewish BRCA Testing Programme
BRCA refers to two genes, BRCA1 and BRCA2, that everyone possesses, these genes help repair damaged DNA. People carrying a BRCA1 or BRCA2 with specific variant changes have an increased risk of developing several cancers, in particular breast, ovarian and pancreatic cancer.
The aim of this programme is to test as many people as possible with Jewish origin (Askenazi, Sephardi, Mizrahi etc…) to understand if they have the variant change. Knowing this allows individuals to access a range of options available on the NHSE to help manage and reduce cancer risk, as as well as avoid passing on the faulty gene to children.
BRCA gene changes
If you have the specific variant changes in one of the BRCA genes, your risk of developing breast cancer and ovarian cancer is greatly increased.
Men with BRCA mutations have an increased risk of getting prostate, breast or pancreatic cancer.
For example, 12 or 13 men in every 100 will get prostate cancer before the age of 80. But out of every 100 men who have the BRCA2 gene mutation, 20 will develop prostate cancer
The project
The three-year Jewish BRCA testing programme, which started in 2023, is funded and commissioned by the NHS National Cancer Programme.
There are several partners participating in the programme working with the North Thames Genomic Medicine Service, both within the NHS, research and charity organisations:
This new programme provides an unprecedented opportunity to better identify individuals with a BRCA variant change in the Jewish community in England. This will prevent more cancers and save more lives.
In order to achieve the aims of the project the team are:
- Creating an ongoing engagement campaign to encourage the Jewish population to come forward for a genetic test for BRCA. This campaign will be targeted at areas with high Jewish populations, but testing will be available to people with Jewish origin across England.
- Developing a genetic testing pathway to provide full BRCA1/ BRCA2 gene sequencing to all Jewish adults that come forward for a test. Genetic counselling will be available to all. Those who test positive will be enrolled into appropriate treatment and surveillance pathways for downstream clinical management.
- Delivering an evaluation of the project to understand how many tests were delivered, how many BRCA mutation carriers were identified and then enrolled into downstream management pathways and the overall impact on number of cancers prevented or diagnosed early
Milestones so far
- Hard launch of the Jewish BRCA Programme
- Over 12,000 expressions of interest (EOI) registered in the first month (>23,000 EOI overall)
- Private lab testing begins to support the large numbers of requested tests
- Over 50 primary care and 100 secondary care organisations
- Worked with HCPs across the region
- Engaged with local community groups such as synagogue movements, cancer/genomics charities, Charedi organisations, Rabbis and Rebbetzins across the religious spectrum
- Soft Launch of the Jewish BRCA Programme