A practical, personal guide to BRCA mutations and the inherited cancers they cause, from a woman who's made her living researching and treating breast cancer--and lived through it herself

A long-time leader in breast cancer research and therapies at the University of California San Francisco, Dr. Pamela Munster has advised countless women, and their families and loved ones, on how to deal with the unknowns and challenges of this life-altering diagnosis. But when at the age of 48 and otherwise in perfect health, she got a call saying that a routine mammogram showed "irregularities," and later saw with her own eyes that she was positive for a BRCA2 mutation, she found herself suddenly, and frighteningly, on the other side of the examining table, a victim of the disease she was an expert in.

Weaving together her personal story of treatment and survival after a double-mastectomy, her coming to terms with her father's pancreatic cancer (also related to BRCA), along with groundbreaking scientific findings about BRCA, Twisting Fate is a refreshing, inspiring, and immensely practical guide to living with these genetic mutations, and an invaluable reference for patients, their families and support systems, as well as doctors and other medical experts. Moving beyond her own story, she draws on patients and case studies of the over 20 different forms of inherited cancers we know to be caused by BRCA--not just breast and pancreatic, but also prostate, fallopian tube, and melanoma. With authority, insight, and compassion, and driven by unflappable optimism, she offers a unique perspective on what it means to have any one of these life-changing diseases--and how to make informed, yet compassionate, decisions about your and your family's biological fate. Giving everyone touched by cancer an equally human and vulnerable face, Twisting Fate creates a safe space for genuine healing, honesty, and hope in a world otherwise dominated by fear.