Cancer Awareness: Beyonce and Solange Tested For Mutated Gene

Beyonce and her sister Solange Knowles were tested for the mutated BRCA2 gene after their father Mathew Knowles informed them he had been diagnosed with breast cancer.

The former Destiny’s Child manager has publicly revealed he is battling the illness and in an interview on Good Morning America, he told presenter Michael Strahan that the first call he made after getting the life changing news was to his musician daughters to warn them that they could be carriers of the same gene which causes cancer.

According to TMZ, Mathew revealed that he plans on removing the ‘other breast’ after already having ‘three lymph nodes’ removed.

As reported by Daily Mail, Mathew decided to share his condition to mark the start of Breast Cancer Awareness month, which runs throughout October. However, he did not reveal the results of Beyonce’s and Solange’s tests.

The music executive who has Beyonce and Solange with his ex-wife Tina and two young children with current spouse Gena Avery, whom he married in 2013 admits there has been a history of breast cancer throughout his family.

He said: ‘Breast cancer has been prevalent in my family. My mother’s sister died of breast cancer, my mother’s sister’s two and only daughters died of breast cancer and my sister-in-law died in March of breast cancer with three kids – a nine, 11- and a 15-year-old – and my mother-in-law had breast cancer. So breast cancer has been all around me. My wife’s mother has breast cancer, too.’

The singers’ father further said

“‘I learned that the numbers that we have for men on breast cancer are not adequate because we don’t have enough men that come forward that take the exam,’ he said. ‘I’m hoping by me coming here today, speaking out, letting folks know that you can survive this, but it has to be early detection. I can’t overemphasize the word ‘early.’