The impact of hereditary cancer gene panels on clinical care and lessons learned.

ABSTRACT: Mutations in hereditary cancer syndromes account for a modest fraction of all cancers; however, identifying patients with these germline mutations offers tremendous health benefits to both patients and their family members. There are about 60 genes that confer a high lifetime risk of specific cancers, and this information can be used to tailor prevention, surveillance, and treatment. With advances in next-generation sequencing technologies and the elimination of gene patents for evaluating genetic information, we are now able to analyze multiple genes simultaneously, leading to the widespread clinical use of gene panels for germline cancer testing. Over the last 4 years since these panels were introduced, we have learned about the diagnostic yield of testing, the expanded phenotypes of the

SUBMITTER: Okur V 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5701305 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature