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Genetic testing after breast cancer diagnosis can provide clues to individualized treatment decisions for a patient and her treatment team.
But many patients are unaware of its existence and could miss this opportunity, according to a new study published in Cancer.
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A team At the University of Michigan, the Rogel Cancer Center recently sought to determine the extent to which newly diagnosed cancer patients understand the benefits of genetic testing after a diagnosis.
Their other goal is to determine whether a decision support tool would improve this knowledge.
"When a breast cancer is diagnosed in a woman, the relevance of information derived from genetic testing on the course of her cancer," states Michele Gornick, M.A., Ph.D., researcher at Michigan Medicine and lead author of the study. "The question is:" Will I have breast cancer? "To:" What is the probability of my cancer recurring? " – and is my family at higher risk?
To better understand, researchers recruited 496 patients with newly diagnosed early-stage breast cancer, resulting from multiple practices in four states. Patients were randomized to visualize a personalized and interactive decision tool called iCanDecide or similar information on a static website.
This tool, presented in the form of a website, aimed to inform women of their locoregional and systemic treatment. It also included a module on genetic testing containing information on the types of genetic tests, the implications of test results for treatments and the importance of benefiting from genetic counseling.
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