It is difficult to counsel patients with a strong family history of breast cancer who are found to carry an unclassified variant in BRCA1 or BRCA2. While management at the level of the family should remain unchanged from that of a BRCAX family with no knowledge of a BRCA1/2 mutation, some individuals from high-risk families may nevertheless interpret information about an unclassified variant to alter their choices regarding prophylactic surgery for example, and so require careful counselling. Here, BRCA1 is linked to breast carcinoma.