The clinical option of prophylactic mastectomy remains controversial (Stefanek et al, 2001), although evidence for a strong protective effect of prophylactic mastectomy for women with a familial history of breast cancer has been presented (Hartmann et al, 1999), and, more specifically, for women with a BRCA1/2 mutation (Hartmann et al, 2001; Meijers-Heijboer et al, 2001). Here, BRCA1 is linked to breast carcinoma.