Genetic Testing

The University of Kansas Cancer Center has launched a telementoring program designed to improve community oncology providers’ knowledge of genetic testing in breast cancer.

CHICAGO — In this video exclusive, Elizabeth McNally, MD, PhD, cardiologist and director of the Center for Genetic Medicine at Northwestern University, discusses implications of straight-to-consumer genetic testing, the subject of her presentation at the Cardiometabolic Health Congress.

A new open access program from Blueprint Genetics, InformedDNA and the Foundation Fighting Blindness will allow patients with inherited retinal disease to receive no-cost genetic testing and genetic counseling in the United States, according to a press release.

The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force recently recommended that primary care physicians screen women with a familial risk assessment tool if they have a family history of breast, ovarian, tubal or peritoneal cancer, or if they have Ashkenazi Jewish ancestry, to determine their risk for BRCA1/2 mutations.

Genetic counseling has been shown to play an important role in improving outcomes in patients who inherited CVD in a study previously presented at a conference held by the National Society of Genetic Counselors. Cardiology Today spoke with Brittney Murray, MS, CGC, genetic counselor in the arrhythmogenic right ventricular dysplasia/cardiomyopathy program at Johns Hopkins Hospital, about the study she and her colleagues conducted and how genetic counseling can be beneficial in this patient population.