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Cancer Genetic Testing: Who is a Candidate?
Cancer Genetic Counseling and testing can help to determine whether a person is at increased risk for a hereditary form of cancer. However, not everyone is a good candidate for genetic testing. There are many important factors including risks, benefits, and limitations of testing that need to be considered before one decides to have genetic testing.
For patients considering testing, The Yale Cancer Center Cancer Genetic Counseling Program provides genetic counseling and helps patients make informed medical decisions based on their own personal risk assessment. Ellen T. Matloff, MS, Director of the Cancer Genetic Counseling Program, has developed a program of two or three 1-hour appointments, depending on the clinical situation. During the first appointment, the family/medical history of the patient is discussed. During the second appointment, genetic testing itself is explained in terms of the likelihood that the cancers in a family are hereditary. The risks, benefits, and limitations of genetic testing are also reviewed and which genetic test, if any, would be most appropriate. The third appointment reviews the available screening and risk reduction options. The clinical team is committed to providing a comprehensive plan to help assist patients and their families with all aspects of the risk assessment and testing process, surveillance, surgical decision-making, and follow-up care.
It is critical that each patient understands the risks and benefits of genetic testing before having the test. “For the right person there are many benefits of having genetic testing. It could lead to earlier and increased surveillance using techniques that are not offered to the general public, but it can also lead to removing parts of the body such as breast tissue or ovarian tissue for people at very high risk,” Matloff said. “We have data to show that these genetic tests are misinterpreted frequently, which is very dangerous. In the past year, one genetic testing company had convinced some health care providers to offer testing to their patients without genetic counseling first by a qualified professional. This is a major liability for the patient and his/her family, but also to those well-meaning providers.” Those who should consider having genetic counseling are people with multiple relatives on the same side of the family with the same cancer or related cancers (i.e. breast/ovarian, pancreatic/melanoma, colon/uterine/ovarian), cancer at an unusually young age, more than one diagnosis of cancer in the same individual, rare cancers (i.e. male breast cancer, medullary thyroid cancer, etc.), or a known altered cancer-predisposing gene.
Cancer genetics is an exciting new field that has shown great promise in the development of new cancer treatments and in cancer prevention and the Yale Cancer Center Genetic 
Counseling Program is uniquely positioned to help physicians and scientists successfully identify high-risk populations and to determine a patient’s susceptibility of developing certain types of cancers. Learning to understand what these advances mean to you is crucial. To learn more, please visit our genetic counseling page...>>