Women with a family history of breast cancer could be allowed to use IVF to have children free of the disease under proposals due to be discussed by the government's fertility watchdog tomorrow.
The move could result in fertility clinics being given the green light to offer the service, which involves screening out embryos containing genes that make them susceptible to breast cancer.
Any move to extend the use of so-called preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) will anger lobby groups who denounce it as a "eugenic approach" to medicine. But scientists argue that eliminating embryos with the faulty genes at an early stage could prevent suffering in later life.
Currently 10 clinics in the UK are licensed by the Human Embryology and Fertilisation Authority (HFEA) to carry out PGD for rare fatal genetic diseases such as cystic fibrosis. In this case, if both parents carry one copy of the faulty version of the gene which causes the disease they have a one in four chance that their child will develop it.
PGD involves selecting a healthy embryo for implantation into the mother's womb during IVF. The procedure entails removing a single cell from the fertilised embryo once it starts to divide in the laboratory. If genetic tests on that cell are normal, the embryo is implanted into the mother's womb and the pregnancy continues normally. Unhealthy embryos are discarded.
Extending this to look for the breast cancer genes would be a significant step for three reasons. First the genes are not an automatic death sentence: each results in an 80% risk of developing breast cancer. But unlike cystic fibrosis, breast cancer is treatable and can be prevented by mastectomy. And it kills much later - in a woman's 30s or 40s - so an embryo which is destroyed might have lived until then.
"Medicine is about caring not about killing," said Josephine Qintavalle of the lobby group Comment on Reproductive Ethics, which opposes all uses of PGD. "The right approach is about learning more about the cancer and curing it."
Fertility doctors disagree. "If families would wish to eliminate the threat of serious cancer from their family they should be at liberty to do so," said Simon Fishel, managing director of CARE, a group of fertility clinics.
Joan Finlayson, 47, from Arbroath, finished nine months of excruciating treatment in September involving chemotherapy, radiotherapy and surgery. "I would do absolutely anything to prevent my daughter from having to go through what I went through," she said.
In a consultation in 2005 the HFEA received 283 written responses, and 118 attended a public meeting. The HFEA's report said views "varied significantly and no overall consensus emerged".
