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Watch a 6-minute video summarizing this study |
Current guidelines recommend that only a subset of cancer patients receive genetic testing. Yet recent data suggest that many more could benefit. In a study of 4,196 Medicare cancer patients published in Annals of Surgical Oncology, Invitae found that positive results are nearly as high in patients who did not meet criteria for testing as in patients who met criteria.1
Positive rates for the pan-cancer panel* were similar among patients who met guidelines and patients who did not meet guidelines (10.5% and 9.0%, respectively). These data suggest that clinicians recommending genetic testing for only those patients who fit criteria are likely to be missing patients with clinically actionable variants.
Read part 2 of this series.
1. Yang S, Axilbund JE, O’Leary E, Michalski ST, Evans R, Lincoln SE, Esplin ED, Nussbaum RL. Underdiagnosis of hereditary breast and ovarian cancer in Medicare patients: Genetic testing criteria miss the mark. Ann Surg Oncol. 2018;25(10):2925-31.
*The average panel ordered in the study tested 37 genes.