A brave Dundonald woman who underwent a voluntary double mastectomy after losing her mother and sister to breast cancer yesterday hailed news of a quicker and cheaper test for hereditary forms of the disease as “fantastic”.

Jan Aitken said the test, which could be available by next year and cost as little as £10 per patient, would save “great heartache and worry” for thousands of women with similar concerns over family history of breast cancer.

The 46-year-old had both breasts removed in 2003 — six months after the death of her younger sister Lila at the age of 38. The sisters’ mother Jean died of breast cancer in 1983 aged just 45.

While Lila was battling cancer, Jan had genetic testing to see if she was carrying cancer-causing mutations in two specific genes known as BRCA1 and BRCA2. This was in the hope of establishing the likelihood of her developing hereditary breast cancer.

It took 18 months for the results of the BRCA1 to come through and seven years for her to receive the outcome of the BRCA2 test — by which stage she had gone ahead with her decision to have a double mastectomy. Jan said the delays were caused by financial constraints on the genetics experts carrying out the tests. While Jan tested negative for both genes, pre-malignant cells were discovered during her mastectomy meaning she would have developed cancer if she not had the operation.

Currently, women being tested for hereditary forms of the disease must undergo expensive full genetic sequencing, which can take up to 18 weeks to complete.

News of a new procedure was announced yesterday revealing it could allow scientists to focus on the two genes for study, cutting costs and reducing time.

Professor Graham Taylor, head of Genomic Services at Cancer Research UK,said this “next generation” sequencing could reduce current costs by up to 99% and deliver major medical advances.

Jan said she endured seven years of “waiting and worrying” while her genes were tested.

“This is a fantastic develop-ment. It will save an awful lot of heartache,” she said. “I had lost my sister and mother to breast cancer. Your imagination starts to run riot while you’re waiting for the results. While it turned out that I was negative for both BRCA1 and BRCA2, meaning something else had caused the cancer, the outcome would have been the same.

“I still would have gone ahead with the mastectomy and I still had to endure that terrible wait for the results. I know now that I made the right decision to have the mastectomy. I got the cancer before it got me. I would probably not be alive today if I had not made that decision.”