AFTER CANCER: SUSCEPTIBILITY TESTING
What Is Susceptibility Testing?
This is a new branch of genetic counseling that determines a person’s susceptibility to cancer, or cancer risk; on the basis of analysis of disease in family members (lineages). While the technology for susceptibility testing is available in Australia, it is still regarded as a research tool and is considered only after appropriate genetic counselling.
What Are the Advantages of Susceptibility Testing?
There are important benefits to susceptibility testing:
•It provides new research data that will lead to a better understanding of cancer and to better treatments.
•It can help identify individuals who should take special precautions or be monitored more aggressively. For example, everyone should be screened routinely for colon cancer. The age at which screening begins, the frequency of screening, and the tests used to screen individuals will depend on their susceptibility to colon cancer. Those with higher susceptibility should be screened more often and more completely.
What Are the Disadvantages of Susceptibility Testing?
Currently, there are a number of disadvantages to pursuing susceptibility testing:
• It can provide false reassurance that you are not at risk. Someone with a strong family history of breast cancer who is four to be at “normal” risk for breast cancer still has a risk of breast cancer. This person needs to perform self-breast exams and have periodic physician exams and mammograms.
• It can cause great anxiety if you are found to have high susceptibility and if there is nothing you can do to prevent the cancer or pick it up at an early, potentially curable stage.
Your susceptibility is not your fate.
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