Comments on: BRCA Genetic Testing for Women Without a Family History of Breast Cancer

By: Perceptions of Genetic Testing

Perceptions of Genetic Testing — Thu, 12 Jul 2007 16:25:27 +0000

[...] Is medical genetic testing worth the ordeal if there is no cure or 100% effective prevention? From what I’ve observed in discussions online, these are some general attitudes towards genetic testing along with my responses in italics in the context of breast cancer: [...]

By: Sister Study

Sister Study — Fri, 22 Jun 2007 20:40:38 +0000

How would you like to make a difference in breast cancer research? The Sister Study needs your help to determine if breast cancer is caused by something women come in contact with at work, at home, in their communities or in the personal products they use.

The Sister Study is looking for 50,000 women to help discover the environmental and genetic causes of the disease. Women ages 35 to 74 are eligible to join if their sister (living or deceased), related to them by blood, had breast cancer; they have never had breast cancer themselves; and they live in the United States or Puerto Rico.

ENROLL TODAY or simply help spread the word to women in your community! Either way, you can help find the causes of breast cancer!!

For more information visit http://www.sisterstudy.org or http://www.estudiodehermanas.org. Call toll-free 1-877-4SISTER. Deaf/Hard of Hearing call 1-866-TTY-4SIS.

By: Eye On DNA Is Rated R — Eye on DNA

Eye On DNA Is Rated R — Eye on DNA — Fri, 22 Jun 2007 09:10:51 +0000

[...] this is what I get for discussing breast cancer and BRCA genetic testing, drug companies and personalized medicine, and reproduction and sex [...]

By: Hsien

Hsien — Thu, 21 Jun 2007 08:48:05 +0000

Wow! Really? You could get behind this?

LOL Just teasing you. This is clearly a situation where there’s a pre-existing condition indicating testing rather than a general population screen. Although I still believe we all have the right to information on ourselves if we want it.

By: Hsien

Hsien — Thu, 21 Jun 2007 08:40:10 +0000

Agreed. A general population screening for BRCA wouldn’t be cost effective (at this point in time) and would raise the specter of false positives and negatives (also subject to the limitations of current technology). But offering BRCA testing to women who developed breast cancer before age 50 looks to be a wise choice.

By: Steven Murphy MD

Steven Murphy MD — Wed, 20 Jun 2007 23:37:10 +0000

Hsien,
Now here is something I can get behind. If you have BRCA testing it is clinical valid. We’re not talking Chromosome 9 for MI here. If you have breast cancer and are younger than 50 you should get tested Period….End of story. With this set of genes were are not talking true multifactorial disease. In multifactorial disease the likelihood of having the disease increases with the number of family members afflicted. That is why family history is only somewhat useful in Autosomal Dominant Diseases. But much more Important in multifactorial disease……
Single gene disease is not the same as heart attack or diabetes. To misrepresent that is not the best thing to do…
-Steve
http://www.thegenesherpa.blogspot.com

By: Brian from babybiotechs.com

Brian from babybiotechs.com — Wed, 20 Jun 2007 18:50:27 +0000

The problem is that the frequency of BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutations are low enough in the general population that it’s probably not economically viable for health insurance companies to test women who aren’t at high risk.

The study says,
“The observed 13.7% rate of mutations in cases with limited family structure exceeds typically applied thresholds for offering genetic testing.”

But the cases already had breast cancer. What we need to know is what percentage of the general population (that have limited family structure) have BRCA1 mutations, which I didn’t see in my scan of the paper. I’d imagine it’s still well below the threshold.