ABSTRACT
Healthy blood relatives (HBR) of the hereditary breast cancer (HBC) patients are considered to be at higher risk to develop cancer. However, all of them do not suffer from same. This may indicate the possibility of association with genetic polymorphism among them. We have studied this genetic polymorphism in terms of C-band heteromorphism among 11 HBC patients, 36 HBR and results were compared with 22 control females. Significantly higher incidence (p < 0.001) of C-band heteromorphism has been observed among the HBC patients and their HBR as compared to the control females. At the same time, however, the difference in incidence of C-band heteromorphism among HBC patients and their HBR were not statistically significant. The findings indicate possibilities of (i) an association between C-band heteromorphism and hereditary breast cancer, and (ii) C-band heteromorphism may be one of the important factors conferring HBR at an elevated risk to develop the breast cancer.