Familial breast cancer: classification, care and managing breast cancer and related risks in people with a family history of breast cancer

Background

NICE was contacted by a stakeholder and asked to withdraw the recommendation, which states: Healthcare professionals should respond to a person who presents with concerns but should not, in most instances, actively seek to identify people with a family history of breast cancer.

NICE surveillance check

The NICE surveillance team checked the guideline to see if there would be any unintended consequences of removing the recommendation.

The check concluded that there is no documented justification for the recommendation within the full guideline – it was not directly linked to evidence or committee discussion - and the intention of the recommendation in the context of the section on family history-taking in primary care is unclear and redundant. It was also identified that removing the recommendation would have no detriment to the guideline's primary care algorithm, which can be found in the full guideline on page 40.

Views of topic experts

We considered the views of topic experts who were recruited to the NICE Centre for Guidelines Expert Advisers Panel to represent primary care. For this surveillance review, GP topic experts were asked if they agreed with the proposal to withdraw recommendation 1.1.2.

We received responses from 2 GPs and both agreed with the proposal.

Stakeholder consultation

Because we were proposing to withdraw recommendations from the guideline, to check if there would be any unintended consequences, we consulted stakeholders.

Six stakeholders from NHSE National Cancer Programme, UK National Screening Committee and 4 charities commented. All 6 agreed with the proposal to withdraw recommendation 1.1.2.

See appendix A for full details of stakeholders' comments and our responses.

See ensuring that published guidelines are current and accurate in developing NICE guidelines: the manual for more details on our consultation processes.

Equalities

No equalities issues were identified that would result from the withdrawal of recommendation 1.1.2.

Overall decision

We will withdraw recommendation 1.1.2 from the guideline on familial breast cancer.

No other recommendations are affected by this decision.

ISBN: 978-1-4731-4635-8