BRCA1 and cancer: In this study, we analyzed a population-based cohort of women recruited from primaryhealth care units in Porto Alegre who were referred to genetic cancer risk assessment(GCRA) whenever they had a positive family history for breast, ovarian and colorectalcancer (Palmero et al., 2009).Those women with pedigrees suggestive of a hereditary breast cancer predispositionsyndrome were offered genetic testing for germline mutations in one or more of the mainbreast cancer predisposition genes (BRCA1, BRCA2, TP53,PTEN and CHEK2).