Women receiving inflated risks from genetic testing could undergo unnecessary breast surgery
Sep 2023, phys.org
Women who discover outside of a clinical setting that they carry a disease-causing variant in one of the BRCA genes may be told their risk of breast cancer is 60–80%. In fact, the risk could be less than 20% if they do not have a close relative with the condition.Until recently, women who received BRCA results did so because they attended clinic due to symptoms, or a family history of disease.However, many people now pay for home DNA testing kits, or are given results as part of taking part in genetic research, without ever having any personal link with breast cancer. The new research was conducted to get a better idea of the true risk level of these BRCA variants in the general population.The research team found a similar result when looking at genetic risk of Lynch syndrome, a genetic condition which increases the risk of colon cancer and some other cancers.
via University of Exeter: Influence of family history on penetrance of hereditary cancers in a population setting, eClinicalMedicine (2023). dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.eclinm.2023.102159
Image credit: AI Art - Egg - 2023
No comments:
Post a Comment