Genetic Cancer Awareness
Women are clueless about their genetic risk of cancer even if they have a strong family history, and regardless of their level of education and income. That’s the conclusion Dr. Michael Manuel and his colleagues reached when they surveyed over 2,800 women about their family history of hereditary breast cancer, Lynch syndrome (colon cancer, HNPCC), and p-16 related melanoma.
Of the women who responded, 313 were considered high risk for at least one of the three syndromes. What was even more amazing, less than 3% of them had undergone genetic counseling or testing. Of the women researchers contacted, only one out of three were interested in learning more about their genetic susceptibility to cancer.
Study participants said they were worried about:
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Privacy
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Age
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Cost
I wonder if they would also rather not know because they don’t want to live in fear. Today at A Hearty Life, I wrote about Karen Speed who died of a heart attack at age 34. Despite having both parents die early of heart disease, she had opted not to undergo rigorous heart screening. Clearly, a great deal of work still needs to be done to educate people about the power of information, genetic or otherwise, in improving their health.
MedPage Today, March 6, 2007
Tags: hnpcc, lynch syndrome, breast cancer, colon cancer, heredity, family history, diseases, illness, health, genetics, genes, genome, dna, medicine, genetic counseling, genetic testing
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POSTED IN: Genetic Testing, Genetics of Disease
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2 opinions for Genetic Cancer Awareness
Pat
Mar 7, 2007 at 5:51 pm
It’s an interesting topic, but I think that most of them don’t want to live in fear. I mean let us face the fact that we like to live our lives without worries. It will be less stressful to live like that.
Cancer Commentary » Cancer Commentary Links 10 March 2007
Mar 10, 2007 at 3:42 am
[...] At Genetics and Health: Genetic Cancer Awareness [...]
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