Advances in technology have made it much easier, faster and less expensive to do whole genome sequencingFalling costs have given rise to speculation that it could soon become a routine part of medical care, perhaps as routine as checking your blood pressure. <\/p>\n
But will such tests, which can be done for as little as $1,000, prove useful, or needlessly scary? <\/p>\n
The first closely-controlled study aimed at answering that question suggests that doctors and their patients can handle the flood of information the tests would produce. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Jason Vassy, a researcher at the VA Boston Healthcare System who led the study,sought to find out what routine testing would look like in a general medicine setting. They studied 100 healthy, middle-aged patients whose primary care physicians randomly asked them if they were interested in having their genomes sequenced. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Among the 50 volunteers who got sequenced, the researchers found that about 1 in 5 had a variant in their genome that was associated with a rare, sometimes serious genetic diseaseMost of them were fine, but what happened next surprised the researchers: Neither the volunteers nor their doctors overreacted. <\/p>\n
We were pleasantly surprised to see that primary care physicians were able to manage their patients genetic results appropriately, Vassy says. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
[However,] others fear that people who get sequenced could be subject to discrimination. <\/p>\n
The GLP aggregated and excerpted this blog\/article to reflect the diversity of news, opinion, and analysis. Read full, original post:Routine DNA Sequencing May Be Helpful And Not As Scary As Feared <\/p>\n
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Originally posted here: Advances in technology have made it much easier, faster and less expensive to do whole genome sequencingFalling costs have given rise to speculation that it could soon become a routine part of medical care, perhaps as routine as checking your blood pressure. But will such tests, which can be done for as little as $1,000, prove useful, or needlessly scary Continue reading
\nSequencing your genome may become a routine part of family checkup - Genetic Literacy Project<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"