A virtually unlimited number of genes tied to hereditary cancer risk can be simultaneously assessed in commercially available tests given both advances in technology and the Supreme Court’s two-year old ruling overturning gene patents. By screening multiple genes in parallel, research has shown that diagnostic yields are on the rise and time to results are down, with the added benefit of not adding much incremental cost for delivery of additional information. As a result of all of these factors, there has been a noticeable uptick in clinical adoption of multigene panels to assess hereditary cancer risk. Yet, despite research heralding the effectiveness of these multigene panels’ appearing in the literature, some clinicians are asking whether adoption is occurring prematurely, before there is a good understanding of the consequences of panel-based testing on clinical management of the patient and other potentially affected relatives. “Many cancer genetics experts have again urged caution, characterizing the use of multigene testing in the clinical setting as premature. Yet thousands of women and their physicians are ignoring this advice, ordering a wide selection of multiplex tests daily,” writes Elizabeth Swisher, M.D., from University of Washington, Seattle in an editorial in JAMA Oncology on Aug. 13. “The […]