Carole Mark

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          The average woman has a 10 percent risk of getting breast cancer in her lifetime. Add a strong family history of the disease, and the risk rises to nearly 80 percent. Doctors believe they've found a way to reduce those numbers with a simple nasal spray.
           Inside is a drug called deslorelin. Jeffrey Weitzel, M.D., an oncologist at the City of Hope Cancer Center in Los Angeles, Calif., believes it will make mammograms easier to read.
        The spray works by shutting down the production of estrogen. Dr. Weitzel says, "It's a medicine that shuts down the ovary, sort of a medical menopause."
        The goal is to make mammograms easier to read, but doctors believe decreasing a woman's exposure to estrogen may do much more. "We fully expect that their breast cancer risk will go down. They'll be less likely to develop breast cancer and possibly even ovarian cancer," says Dr. Weitzel.
        So far, Brandy shows no sign of the disease that killed her mother and grandmother. If the spray works, it's possible
   she never will.
      Doctors say if it works it may someday be used for women with a moderate risk of breast cancer and as a simple
contraceptive. So far, studies show women on the drug are able to conceive children later. Dr. Weitzel says there are
no significant side effects from the drug.