If a woman dies from breast cancer, her daughters and sisters have a 60% to 80% greater chance of dying within 5 years if they also develop breast cancer.

At least that’s what a Swedish team of researchers concluded from a study of almost 2800 mother-daughter pairs and over 800 sister pairs with breast cancer.

As published in the online journal, Breast Cancer Research, here are the survival rates for the pairs with breast cancer:

• 91% of daughters survived if their mother survived after 5 years

• 87% of daughters survived if their mother died within 5 years

• 88% of sisters survived if a woman survived after 5 years

• 70% of sisters survived if a woman died within 5 years

This means the prognosis for breast cancer may be inherited.

Outside of this study, though, other factors may influence survival rates, such as:

• Socio-economic status

• Early detection

• Access to good medical care

• Obesity

• Use of hormone replacement therapy

While there’s no acceptable level of death, the numbers looked encouraging from the daughters’ standpoint. The worst prognosis was for the sisters of breast cancer victims who died.

This study makes it sound as though survival or death is preordained.

But there are new treatments being developed everyday. There’s no reason why survival rates can’t continue to improve.