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• About the study
• Study outline
• What is involved in taking part
• History of the Study
• The newsletter

The Breakthrough Generations Study is focused specifically on finding the causes of breast cancer.

What is the Study about?

The study is recruiting over 100,000 women from the general population from whom information is gathered, at recruitment, about factors that might relate to breast cancer risk or protection. Contact is then kept with these women over time to determine their risks of breast cancer in relation to these factors; in medical terminology the study is called a “cohort study”.

Cohort studies are the most powerful method available to science to find out the causes of cancer in people. For example, scientists used this type of study to show clearly that cigarettes cause lung cancer and that asbestos causes cancer of the lining of the lung (pleural cancer).

The Breakthrough Generations Study has been designed to investigate the complex interplay of lifestyle, environmental, genetic and hormonal factors acting throughout a woman’s life and determine how these affect an individual’s risk of developing breast cancer. Pinpointing these factors should be of benefit to present and future generations, and enable women to make informed lifestyle choices.

The study will have a unique focus and scale, and will continue to give information for the next 40 years and longer, although the first results on breast cancer causes will be ready much sooner than that, in a few years from now.

Information on current knowledge about breast cancer risk factors.