Tracey Barraclough tested positive for faulty BRCA1 in 1998.
The actor Angelina Jolie has had a double mastectomy because she has the faulty BRCA1 gene.
The NHS tests about 7,500 women a year for faulty BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes which increase the risk of breast or ovarian cancer.
The lifetime risk of a carrier of a faulty BRCA1 carrier getting breast cancer can be as high as 60-80%.
The women were either known carriers of faulty BRCA1 or BRCA2 genes or were likely to be carriers – 44 of them had a double mastectomy while 346 had a single mastectomy.
Researchers looked at women with faulty BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes – which cause a high risk of hereditary breast cancer – who had also been diagnosed with the earliest stages of the disease.
The collapse has left 1,500 cab drivers across the UK without a warranty on their vehicles, while the 300 owners of the faulty TX4 models are unable to use them.
Last week the designer baby debate was back in the papers when one couple spoke out about their application for permission to screen their embryos for the faulty BRCA1 gene.
Emma Smith at Cancer Research UK said: "Insights into the molecules causing tumour growth in women with faulty BRCA1 genes could lead to new treatments reducing the risk of developing breast cancer, giving these women another option to lower their risk.
I lost my mum and sister to breast cancer, and I carry the faulty BRCA1 gene – which increases your chances of developing the disease (I had an 85% chance) – but despite all this it had never really worried me.
As a carrier of what she called a "faulty" BRCA1 gene, Jolie's own risk of developing ovarian cancer was determined by her doctors to be fifty per cent; of breast cancer, eighty-seven per cent.
