Genetic Testing and Non-High Risk

A person can be considered medically high risk due to their or a family member ' s medical history. If you are considered medically as high risk, you get popped into the category of give them lots more medical attention and ' lovely ' tests.Now withthe progress of genomic testing, its no longer a big expensive, rare proposition. However, why do we only test the high risk people? These are the people who already know they are high risk. But that leaves a lot of people who don ' t know they are high risk and could be. This doesn ' t make sense. Some new research asks if it wouldn ' t it make more sense to test more people who aren ' t necessarily considered high risk? That might be more practical and save lives." A study published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute indicates that screening the general population for mutations in specific genes is a more cost-effective way to detect people at risk and prevents more breast and ovarian cancers compared to only screening patients with a personal or family history of these diseases.Current guidelines recommend that only those with a personal or family history that could indicate a greater risk of developing cancer be tested for gene mutations that can cause the disease. However, the successful use of testing for high-risk groups has led many to consider extending genetic testing for cancer to the whole population. "As I said it does make a lot of sense to do this. You would find people who did not know they were hi...
Source: Caroline's Breast Cancer Blog - Category: Cancer & Oncology Tags: breast cancer cancer prevention genetic testing ovarian cancer Source Type: blogs