SCOTS women who are most at risk of developing breast cancer are to be offered a new "gold standard" drug to prevent the disease.
Those who have two or more family members with breast cancer will now be offered tamoxifen for five years, where clinically appropriate.
It will be the first time the drug is used as a preventative measure.
Recent studies have found taking tamoxifen can reduce the risk of developing breast cancer by up to 50%.
About 50,000 women are diagnosed with breast cancer each year in the UK, including 4500 in Scotland.
James Jopling, Scotland Director at Breakthrough Breast Cancer said: "We welcome this announcement that women in Scotland at high risk of breast cancer due to their family history will now be offered the drug tamoxifen as a preventative treatment.
"It is so important people have an array of options available to them to manage their own breast cancer risk.
"Although they represent only a very small proportion of the population, for those at highest risk it is vital their options go beyond screening or surgery through the use of preventative medicine."
Tamoxifen will be offered for five years to women at high risk of breast cancer unless they have a history of thromboembolic disease or endometrial cancer.
Genetic testing will also be offered to affected women who have a 10% chance of having a faulty gene.
Tests can establish whether women have the genes which can increase the risk of cancer.
Health Secretary Alex Neil said: "It is fantastic we can now find out who is most at risk of cancer and stop it from developing."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article