A new multi-institution study led by Fergus Couch, Ph.D., a Mayo Clinic pathologist, provides more accurate estimates of breast cancer risk for U.S. women who harbor inherited mutations in breast cancer predisposition genes. The findings of the CARRIERS Consortium study, published Jan. 20 in The New England Journal of Medicine, may allow health care providers to better assess the risk of breast cancer in women ? many of whom have no family history of breast cancer.