Families with a history of cancers and other inherited diseases may soon be able to ensure their babies do not have the genes responsible by opting for IVF instead of natural conception.

Fertility regulators are considering whether to widen the rules which already allow parents to ensure babies are not born with faulty genes that will inevitably lead to conditions such as cystic fibrosis and Huntington's disease.

This would enable clinics to offer parents the opportunity to prevent their offspring inheriting genes for conditions that may develop later in life, even though not all people with the genes will ever get the disease.

Inherited breast, ovarian and colon cancer are likely to be among the first targeted if the change goes ahead.

The move is likely to prompts ethical debate for two reasons. First, it might encourage families with no history of fertility problems despite other family health problems to seek IVF. Secondly, it would mean the destruction of embryos capable of forming life with no guarantee that genes they carried would be responsible to later disease.

Screening using pre-implantation genetic diagnosis has been allowed for more than three years, but it is thought that the technique has been used no more than 100 times.

Angela McNab, chief executive of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority, said it wanted to a public debate on the issue and would be providing further details in the autumn. "The question we want to ask people is, should this technology also be used on diseases that people have a lower chance of getting and may occur later in life?

"Our policy team have identified that we are likely to have to consider applications for using treatment in this way for inherited breast cancer and other conditions in the near future. No parent would wish their daughter to have major and traumatic surgery, but not every woman who carries the faulty breast cancer gene will develop the disease."

The charity Breast Cancer Campaign welcomed the promised consultation on "this very difficult and sensitive issue". Its chief executive, Pamela Goldberk, said: "These are parents facing the possibility of having daughters at a greatly increased risk of developing the disease but with the possibility that they may not develop it.

"This is a very difficult judgment for parents to have to make. Once the possibility for genetic screening exists it is very difficult to deny it to those people who are or might be affected."

John Toy, medical director of Cancer Research UK, said: "As more genes are discovered which predispose people to an increased risk of cancer, it is essential that society has an educated debate on how to use the new information.

"For instance, carrying a faulty version of the gene BRCA1 is by no means a death sentence. Not all women who carry this fault will develop breast cancer, and even those who do can have potentially life-saving treatment."