Participation questions

Any woman aged 18 years or over can take part in the study. We are recruiting women resident in England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland, the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands.

If you contact us we will send you an information pack. If you then decide to take part in the study, we would send you a questionnaire to complete, asking about various factors in your life that might be connected with risk of breast cancer. We would also wish to obtain a blood sample from you. You can contact us via this website or by telephoning 0870 242 4485.

If you take part you will be sent an annual newsletter to let you know about the study’s progress and its results. Information about progress and results will also be put on this website. Because the purpose of the study is to assess breast cancer risks over the long-term, we would plan to keep in touch with you every two or three years, to ask very briefly about your current health, and less often we would send you a new questionnaire and ask if you would provide a further blood sample.

Yes, you will be free to withdraw at any time, without giving any reason.

As in most medical research, participants will not be paid for taking part.

Yes, please let us know; you are still very much part of the study.

Yes, of course. All information collected about you during the course of the research will be treated in the strictest confidence and kept under the supervision of Professor Swerdlow, who is a medical doctor.

We would be grateful if you would let us know about your new address. The annual newsletter has a tear-off slip to enable this, or you can write to us directly to let us know:
Breakthrough Generations Study Team
FREEPOST NAT 21013
The Institute of Cancer Research
Sutton
SM2 5BR
(stamp not needed)

We will be sending all study members a newsletter every year in the Spring. You can download the newsletters for 2006 and 2007 from this website, and the 2008 newsletter will be available soon. We will also be writing to study participants about every 2½ years to keep in touch with them and to ask about their current health and changes in lifestyle. The first of these is now being sent out to participants as they reach 2½ years from joining the study. The next one is expected to be sent at about 5 years from joining the study. The dates on which they are sent to each individual woman will depend on when she originally joined.