An international team of scientists has identified a second major breast cancer gene that makes some women highly likely to get the disease.

In families with a strong history of breast cancer, women who inherit a defective version of the gene run about an 80 percent lifetime risk of the disease.

The gene is called BRCA2, and it follows the identification of BRCA1 last year. Only about 5 percent to 10 percent of all cases of breast cancer are thought to come from inheriting a faulty gene.