It's the Brian Lairn Show on WNYC. Good morning again, everyone. I'm Bridget Bergen in for Brian today. When most of us think of the BRCA gene mutation, we think of a higher risk of breast cancer for women.

Decades of awareness campaigns have encouraged more and more women to test for the gene mutations

and to hopefully make more informed decisions about their care.

But more recently, the mutations have been linked to other parts of the body and cancer it can cause there.

Think the esophagus, stomach, skin, and prostate.

In fact, as many as 60% of men with mutations in the BRCA2 develop prostate cancer.

And many men are far less aware that mutations in this gene can impact them at all.

Joining us now to explain the link between BRCA mutations and why more men should get tested is Kristen V. Brown, staff writer at the Atlantic covering health and science.

Kristen, welcome to WNYC.

Hi, thanks for having me.

And if you're just tuning it, listeners, I wonder if we have any men listening out there

that know they have the BRCA1 or BRCA2 gene mutations, how did you find out?

And what do you do with that information?

Maybe you've had one of these cancers linked to mutations in these genes.

Were you able to trace it back and see if, you know, it was linked to these mutations or were you screened?

And have you had these, whether you had these gene mutations or not, what was that like?

What led you to ask?

Or anything else you want to help us report this story?

212-433 W-N-Y-C, that's 212-433-9-6-92.

You can call or text at that number.

And, Kristen, before we get really into the details, let's do some basic BRCA-101.

Some people refer to it by spelling out that acronym as I just did.

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