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Screening for genetic risk of breast cancer is expensive and inefficient
Screening of all women for genetic mutations, which increase the risk of developing breast cancer and ovarian cancer, is too expensive to be justified. These are the results of a new study conducted by the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) and published in the JAMA Oncology, the Mednovosti portal reports.
Screening of all women for genetic mutations, which increase the risk of developing breast cancer and ovarian cancer, is too expensive to be justified. These are the results of a new study conducted by the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) and published in the JAMA Oncology, the Mednovosti portal reports.
Women with mutations BRCA1 and BRCA2 are under a significantly increased risk of cancer, but the screening of general population does not have much effect. For every 10 thousand women, only 4 cases of breast cancer and 2 cases of ovarian cancer can be prevented additionally as compared to survey only those who have a family history of these diseases. Such screening would increase the life expectancy of patients by an average of two days.
More than 99% of women, who got negative genetic test results, are not exempt from regular surveys for BC and this result does not mean the absence of cancer risk for them. The genetic test costs about $4000.
"For the genetic testing for BRCA to be beneficial for all women, the cost should drop by 90%," said Patricia Ganz, one of the study authors and director of cancer prevention department of the Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center. "Only one out of 400 women has one or both mutations; the total screening for all women in the USA will cost almost $400 billion," said Elisa Long, the second author.
Of the 233 thousand breast cancer cases diagnosed annually in the USA, only 5-10% is associated with mutations of the BRCA gene.
Original text: http://medportal.ru/mednovosti/news/2015/09/15/844brca/
