Will Cancer Risk Assessment and Counseling Services Survive Genetic Testing?

Abstract

With the availability of genetic testing to detect increased hereditary susceptibility to breast and other cancers, Cancer Risk Assessment and Counseling services have come to be viewed by many primarily as a means of obtaining genetic testing and hereditary risk information. The public and healthcare professionals need to be aware that even when genetic testing is not used or is uninformative, families with and without a strong family history of cancer will benefit from Cancer Risk Assessment and Counseling if the process includes assessment of cancer risk, information about cancer etiology, help in dealing with the psychosocial consequences of the cancer experience, and development of emotional and medical coping strategies. Risk assessment services can best serve concerned individuals and their families when sufficient time is allotted for these primary aims, and when genetic testing is seen as one of the useful tools, not the primary goal of such services.