breast cancer genetics testing

The past decade has witnessed a rapid expansion of genetic tests, including new instruments to inform patients who have been diagnosed with breast cancer about the risk of recurrence and to guide their treatment. But the clinical significance of many of the inherited mutations that can now be identified remains unclear, and experts are torn […]

Research on hereditary breast cancer has not included as many women with African ancestry as women with European ancestry. For that reason, less is known about the risk for women from these ethnic groups to have a genetic mutation that increases the risk of breast cancer. A study by one of the larger genetics laboratories

More than 40 percent of African American women diagnosed with breast cancer did not receive the genetic testing they were eligible for, in a study of 250 patients in the St. Louis area between 2016 and 2018. Of those who were eligible, 9 percent turned out to be carrying potentially harmful gene mutations in later