Routine DNA Screening Moves Into Primary Care

Mito

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Routine DNA Screening Moves Into Primary Care

If you have a genetic mutation that increases your risk for a treatable medical condition, would you want to know? For many people the answer is yes. But typically such information has not been a part of routine primary care.

For patients at Geisinger Health System, that could soon change. Starting in the next month or so, the Pennsylvania-based system will offer DNA sequencing to 1,000 patients, with the goal of eventually extending the offer to all 3 million Geisinger patients.

The health system's test will look for mutations in at least 77 genes. Many have been associated with medical conditions — dozens of them, ranging from heart disease to cancer. Others have been linked to variability in how people respond to certain medicines based on heredity.

"We're giving more precision to the very important decisions that people need to make," says Dr. David Feinberg, Geisinger's president and CEO. In the same way that primary care providers currently suggest checking someone's cholesterol, he says, "we would have that discussion with patients: 'It looks like we haven't done your genome. Why don't we do that?' "

But some physicians and health policy analysts question whether such genetic information is necessary to provide good primary care and whether handling such testing is feasible for many primary care physicians.
 

haidut

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