Tag Archives: BRCA testing

by | March 18, 2018 · 6:27 PM

Medical Strategy or Marketing Strategy?

A well-known direct-to-consumer (DTC) genetic testing company now has FDA approval to include a very limited form of BRCA testing with its DNA genotyping product. I refrain from mentioning the company’s name because they already got enough free press from the announcement. You probably know what company I am referring to, and if you don’t, well, follow the above link. Sorry Unnamed Company, but I am not going to make the free advertising that easy for you, no matter how insignificant the source. Besides, I see it as a bigger issue than just one company’s policy.

For now, the analysis is limited to the three BRCA1&2 mutations that are more common among Ashkenazi Jews. Actually, the company offered the same 3 mutation test until they were slapped with a cease and desist letter from FDA in 2013 to stop all medically related testing. So this new announcement amounts to a resurrection of a nearly decade-old policy, not a groundbreaking innovation. Funny, though, that there was not this much to-do when the test was first offered.

The genetic counseling community is in a bit of a dither about this, including me, though admittedly part of the reason I am writing this blogpost is to help me figure out just what I am dithering about.

Some of the concerns are obvious. People may be under the misconception that a negative result = no increased risk of hereditary breast/ovarian cancer and thus some high risk women may forego potentially lifesaving surgery and appropriate screening strategies. Then there is the worry that patients will not follow through with genetic counseling if the testing is positive, or that high risk patients will not seek genetic counseling and more testing if the result is negative. If you are not Ashkenazi Jewish, the test does not seem to offer much benefit. And even for Ashkenazi Jews, the testing does not include the ~10 other genes linked to hereditary breast cancer and the ~10 other genes linked to hereditary ovarian cancer.

The company recommends verifying positive results with an experienced clinical lab.  For that matter, then, why not verify a negative result, if there is that much uncertainty? Why bother having a test if you can’t fully trust the result? I suspect though that there is probably little reason to doubt the test result and that the company makes this recommendation to keep FDA happy and to minimize their legal exposure rather than concerns about assay validity.

Incidentally, the cost of the company’s product is really not much different than the more comprehensive multigene hereditary cancer panels offered by some of the clinical testing labs, and in some cases more expensive.

Eight years ago I shared my first experience with a patient whose BRCA carrier status was detected through DTC testing. My patient’s experience and a few more cases I encountered since then have not been that different than my patients who went through the usual counseling and testing process. A 2013 study by the company  showed that the 11 women and 14 men who discovered their BRCA status through DTC testing had experiences similar to my patients. That last statement is brimming with caveats – small sample size, at least for my patients they were savvy enough to want to see a genetic counselor, personality traits of the earliest users of new products, no long-term follow-up, etc. But I am not aware of any independent, large-scale studies of patients who learned their BRCA status through DTC testing to more definitively address the pros and cons, other than studies offering BRCA testing that targeted all Ashkenazi Jewish women.

I readily admit that I may be proven wrong, but I am guessing that most of the consumers of this DTC product – note they are not patients because the test is not intended for clinical use – will opt to learn their BRCA status. After all, people have this testing to learn about their genetic makeup. I am also guessing that this may be the company’s proverbial toe-in-the-water; I would not be at all surprised if additional clinically useful testing is part of the company’s future product and marketing plans.

At heart, I don’t like the idea of DTC BRCA testing. I think about all the ways it can go wrong, and inevitably some of those ways will come to pass. But will it go right often enough, and go wrong infrequently enough, that there will be adequate benefit to justify offering DTC testing? Undoubtedly, some of my uneasiness stems from a professional conflict of interest; DTC eliminates my role as an interface between patients and testing. Personally, I think being a middleman is a good thing because it can help patients take a thoughtful deep breath before leaping into the gene pool. But that could be because I have been trained to think that way and because it supports the value of my professional career. What I really should want is for patients to have access to genetic information in a manner that is affordable, accurate, psychologically and emotionally appropriate, and medically useful. If DTC and other forms of offering BRCA testing works for many men and women, then I should swallow my professional pride and acknowledge it.

So having stewed on this for a while, I have come to the realization that my argument isn’t with this company per se. Other companies aggressively market hereditary cancer and other genetic testing to average risk people. For example, one company approached my institution with the idea of offering their product to all women coming in for breast imaging, with saliva kits kept in the mammography center along with a prescription pad with a genetic counselor’s name on it acting as an ordering provider for the test (legal in my state). Although many labs employ genetic counselors who work directly with patients to review test results, this is still not the same experience as meeting with a genetic counselor before undergoing testing to explore the complex medical and psychological issues surrounding genetic testing. And the highly respected Dr. Mary-Claire King has advocated for population based genetic screening for establishing hereditary breast cancer risk. Are DTC clinical testing and other consumer-friendly strategies disruptive ideas that will bring about much-needed change or are they just bad but well-intentioned ideas that will also fill company’s coffers and keep investors happy?

Having sifted through and weighed my thoughts and feelings about DTC testing or other genetic test delivery models, I have concluded that my problem is not with DTC or other models per se. My argument is with how these new testing approaches are introduced into clinical practice, typically under some version of the banner of liberating testing and bringing it to the people. I do not doubt the labs’ sincerity when they say they are trying to improve access to medical care and reduce the suffering from cancer and other illnesses. But these are as much marketing strategies as they are medical strategies. Labs should not be calling the shots on the introduction of new tests and practice models because, in the absence of well designed studies, we really have no idea if these new approaches are effective in reducing cancer risks and increasing high risk screening when indicated, or if they are in the patients’ best emotional and psychological interests. Just throwing a mess of tests out there and encouraging everyone to take one is, in my view, irresponsible.

A better approach is to first conduct controlled and ideally randomized studies that evaluate both new and novel testing strategies to determine the most beneficial one(s) for patients, or if different types of patients benefit differently from different strategies. For example, age, family history, medical history, psychological functioning, and socio-economic status could all conceivably affect outcomes, not too mention the all too real possibility that many Americans may lose health insurance in the near future. While labs should play a critical role in that evaluative process, to keep it as clean as possible the studies need to be conducted and overseen by researchers who have no financial benefit from the outcomes of such studies.

We are in this together, so let’s work together.

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by | May 17, 2015 · 11:23 PM

I Love Them, I Love Them Not….. Proposed Revised Medicare Guidelines For Coverage of BRCA Testing

Graphic by Emily Singh

Graphic by Emily Singh

The Centers For Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has proposed a revised Local Coverage Determination (LCD) for BRCA* testing that is bound to make genetic counselors equal parts happy and  upset. Whether you are mad, glad, or confused, CMS is seeking input so you have the opportunity to applaud, chastise, or critique the proposed LCD as you see fit. The guidelines are too numerous to detail here, so I will highlight a few that are particularly relevant to the genetic counseling community. Please, please, please carefully read the guidelines yourselves.

The most radical change is that, as I read the LCD, it appears that genetic counselors are poised to become covered Medicare providers. In the section on coverage for multigene panels (itself a disappointment, vide infra), one of the criteria that must be met is “Pretest genetic counseling by a cancer genetics professional” defined as, among others, a Genetic Counselor certified by the American Board of Medical Genetics or the American Board of Genetic Counseling. Amen to that. This is a huge step forward for the genetic counseling profession and for patients covered by Medicare.  Note, though, that this “genetic counseling by a genetics professional” requirement is limited to patients who want multigene panel testing; it is not mentioned in the section on patients who undergo BRCA testing alone. Of course, patients who ask their providers about a multigene panel would need to be referred to genetics professionals. The LCD further points out that the Affordable Care Act mandates private insurers to provide no-out-of pocket cost coverage for genetic counseling and BRCA testing for eligible women.

The second major issue – and one that we should welcome but will undoubtedly  raises hackles among many genetic counselors – is that the coverage for genetic counseling excludes genetics professionals who are employed by a commercial laboratory. However, genetic counselors would be covered if  they “are employed by or contracted with a laboratory that is part of an Integrated Health System which routinely delivers health care services beyond just the laboratory itself.” In other words, a genetic counselor employed by, say, Ambry or GeneDx or Counsyl would not be covered but a genetic counselor who worked for, say, Baylor or the University of Washington would be covered. While we all want to deny that we would actually let conflict of interest color the care we provide, in fact conflict of interest could develop into a very serious threat to the integrity of the profession in the absence of clear-cut guidelines for lab-employed genetic counselors.

The third big change is that the new criteria include women who do not have a personal history of breast cancer but have a sufficiently concerning family history of cancer. Until now, only women diagnosed with breast or ovarian cancer were eligible for testing. The new criteria, based on NCCN guidelines, are quite broad, and besides breast and ovarian cancers some of the criteria also include pancreatic and prostate cancers. For example, as I interpret the LCD, testing would be covered for an unaffected woman if she has a first or second degree relative with breast cancer at any age and another relative with breast cancer diagnosed at 50 or younger; or if a first or second degree relative has breast cancer and there are two relatives diagnosed with pancreatic cancer or prostate cancer with Gleason score =7 (surely CMS means ≥ 7 ); or if a woman has a first or second degree relative with ovarian/fallopian tube/primary peritoneal cancer; or if a there is a first or second degree relative with pancreatic cancer or prostate cancer (Gleason score = 7) and there are two or more relatives with breast/ovarian/pancreatic/prostate cancer (Gleason = 7). In a further broadening of criteria, patients with pancreatic and prostate cancers would also be covered, provided they meet family history or ancestry criteria.

Critically, the guidelines for testing unaffected individuals specifically apply to unaffected adult women with a family history of cancer; there is no mention of  unaffected men. Thus, I assume that an unaffected male who otherwise meets family history criteria would not be covered. However, coverage is provided for men who have been diagnosed with breast cancer, and men who have been diagnosed with prostate/pancreatic cancer who meet family history criteria.

While I wholeheartedly support the expanded criteria, they are very, very complicated. It will require careful comparison of pedigrees with the new criteria; I suspect that many errors will unintentionally arise. Some patients who may have been told by their ordering provider that they might be covered will find out that in fact they don’t meet guidelines (hopefully through the careful checking by laboratories before testing is initiated). Other patients will be incorrectly told by the ordering provider that they are not eligible for coverage, resulting in an unfortunate lost opportunity for initiating cancer risk reduction strategies.

Another complication lies in the definition of “close blood relatives” which Medicare currently defines this as first, second, and third degree relatives. However, in the proposed LCD, various criteria apply sometimes to first and second degree relatives, and sometimes to third degree relatives. In other places, “close blood relative” is not defined. For example, under the first section titled “Personal History of Female Breast Cancer” the second criterion reads “Diagnosed at age 50 or younger with at least one close blood relative* with breast cancer at any age.” I may have missed it, but I could not find where the asterisked “close blood relative” was defined. Further complicating the matter are criteria that depend on Gleason scores for prostate cancer. Realistically, what patient is going to know Grandpa’s or Uncle Jack’s Gleason score, and if they died 20 years ago, how can the score be found? If a relative died of prostate cancer, there is a pretty good chance he had a high Gleason score but still definitive proof will be hard to unearth.

The fourth Big News Item is a limitation on coverage for multigene panels. Currently, I can get coverage for just about any multigene panel that included BRCA, as long as the patient met criteria for BRCA testing. The proposed guidelines, however, limit panel testing to situations where all of the genes on the panel are relevant to the patient’s personal and family history AND the individual meets NCCN guidelines for at least one other hereditary cancer syndrome such as Li-Fraumeni, Cowden, or Lynch. Thus, panels like Myriad’s myRisk, the University of Washington’s BROCA, or Gene Dx’s Comprehensive Cancer Panel would not be covered. Labs will need to do lots of rejiggering of their panels. For Myriad, the proposed guidelines would be an especially big hit since Myriad appears to be phasing out single gene testing and replacing all genetic testing with myRisk. Rubbing a little more salt into Myriad’s wound, the CMS guidelines state that BRCA CDx, the BRCA test intended for patients who are being considered for treatment with the PARP inhibitor Lynparza, will not be covered for patients who have already had BRCA testing.

No doubt this LCD will cause strong reactions, both pro and con. Genetic counselor input is critical. It is not a finalized document and we can play a key role in shaping the delivery of medical genetic services. The comment period is 6/17/2015 through 8/3/2015. Per the LCD, the Proposed Contact is Earl Berman, Attn Medical Review, Two Vantage Way, Nashville, TN 37228 or Earl.Berman@cgsadmin.com.

I may  have misinterpreted parts of the LCD so please call me out if I got something wrong. And share your thoughts about the proposed guidelines in the Comments section below.

* To get to the proposed LCD, click on the Accept button at the bottom of the link page, which will take you to the proposed guidelines.

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by | September 28, 2014 · 7:16 PM

Benefits, Beneficence, and Bending Ethics: Questionable Billing Practices for Multigene Panels?

Germline multigene panel testing is the new hot thing in genetic counseling circles. For the last 15 or so years, the equation has read “Breast Cancer Genetics = BRCA Testing,” with the occasional TP53, PTEN, STK11, or CDH1 test thrown in when we thought we were being clinically astute and smarter than the non-geneticsts at Tumor Board. But now, thanks to the discovery of other genes linked to hereditary breast cancer along with the miracle of massively parallel sequencing, we can test patients for a bucketful of genes in one fell swoop without significantly increasing the cost. We debate the wisdom of including some of the genes on these panels, differences in laboratory quality, the clinical value of the information, and – everybody’s favorite – high rates of variants of uncertain significance. These are  important issues but here I want to discuss an ethically gray practice that has not received much public airing – billing health insurers for multigene panels.

Here in the beautiful Pacific Northwest, roughly half of the health insurance companies cover multigene panels. Not uncommonly, patients will request “that new gene test” that their friend told them about. Counseling issues aside, many patients are disappointed when they learn that if they want a multigene panel, their insurer will not pay for it and they will have to fork over $1500-$4100 of their own hard-earned money. But word on the street – and I am not naming names since I don’t have personal experience with this phenomenon yet – is that some patients are managing to get gene panels covered by their insurers even when their carriers have explicit policies against such testing.

I have been told – and again I acknowledge that I do not have hard proof of this – that some labs are running the panels but not letting insurers know that a multigene panel test was performed. This is partially due to the insurance coding game. The billing codes for BRCA testing are the same as the billing codes for multigene panels, so on one level, insurers are blind to the distinction between the two tests and might never know that their policyholders are not exactly getting the test that the insurer paid for. If  labs eat these costs in full, well, that’s their own business decision and not an ethical lapse (although I wonder how many write-offs a lab can absorb while still maintaining profitability).

If this deceptive billing practice is indeed taking place, it is hard to believe that labs are doing this strictly out of the goodness of their hearts or entirely out of concern for the health and well-being of patients. Genetic testing for hereditary breast cancer has become highly competitive and labs are intensely vying for market share since the US Supreme Court decision in Association for Molecular Pathology v. Myriad Genetics opened up BRCA testing to all labs. If labs are engaging in this practice, it is likely because they want to win the favor of major cancer centers that can provide millions of dollars of business.

Billing an insurer for a test when the lab is aware that the insurer does not cover it, and not letting the insurer know which test was actually run, strikes me as dishonest rather than just bending the rules. And if we genetic counselors stand silently by and allow this to transpire, we are accessories to this moral – and legal? – infraction. It may also cause insurers like Cigna to rethink their policy of requiring a consultation with a genetic counselor before approving coverage for genetic testing. We are, after all, supposed to be conscientious about their guidelines when we order genetic testing for their policyholders.


 RULES2

Now let me be clear. I am (mostly) a supporter of gene panel testing and think it should be a covered benefit, though I must admit that I am a bit disappointed in the low yield of actionable positive results beyond BRCA. I have spent an inordinate amount of time appealing these policies, with little success. It is frustrating for me and it makes patients unhappy when their insurer does not cover a test that care providers think could be useful.

Sure, we want what we think is best for patients, and yes insurance company policies can be maddening. But that does not provide moral justification for deceiving insurance companies. The ends do not justify the means. Instead, it should put the burden on us to continue to appeal the policies through established channels and to perform research studies that assess the clinical value of testing for genes such as NBN, RAD51C, or PALB2. Insurers have a valid point when they say that there are inadequate data to determine the clinical utility of multigene panel tests for their policyholders.

I hope that what I have been told is incorrect. If so, then we can write this posting off as based on unverified rumors. But if there is some truth to it, then we need to have a hard and thoughtful discussion. I am interested in hearing the experience of others with insurance coverage for multigene panels.

 

– Thank you to Emily Singh for help with the graphics.

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by | June 16, 2013 · 4:50 PM

Star Power

BRCA is a hot news item these days. The SCOTUS ruling on the Myriad patent. Angeline Jolie writing in the New York Times about her experience with BRCA testing. A movie about BRCA testing starring Helen Hunt as Mary-Claire King (Hey,when they make the movie about me, they will have to get Clooney or Depp for the lead). But BRCA testing has been around for about 15 years and I have met with  thousands of patients who have gone through the decision-making process about genetic testing. For some the choice was a snap; for others it was a difficult, soul-searching affair. I eventually realized  the obvious – nobody undergoes BRCA testing until they are emotionally ready.

Public lectures, brochures, ad campaigns, podcasts, TV commercials, advertisements, physician referrals, and word of mouth all increase awareness of BRCA testing but they do not necessarily drive people to actually meet with a genetic counselor or to undergo testing. When reviewing medical records prior to a patient’s appointment, I frequently see the notation “Recommended that the patient see Bob Resta for BRCA testing” repeated multiple times over the years by different providers – radiologists, family practitioners, gynecologists, etc. Patients often need a trigger to make the appointment phone call. A cancer diagnosis pushes some patients to testing to help guide their treatment decisions, which, from a preventative public health stand point, is a significant systems failure. Many patients, particularly those who have not yet been diagnosed with cancer, need an emotional trigger – a friend diagnosed with cancer, reaching the age when a parent was diagnosed with cancer, coming to grips with the responsibilities of parenthood, or an experience that causes them to acknowledge their mortality.

These triggers have resulted in a more or less steadily increasing flow of  referrals, with occasional rises and dips that follows a pattern that is no more transparent to me than the whimsical ups and downs of the stock market. But overall cancer genetic counseling and testing is still underutilized.

And then came Angelina Jolie.

I am guessing that most cancer genetics programs were swamped with a tsunami of referrals after May 14th.  Rumor has it that  some genetic counselors have taken to saying that the AJ Panel now stands for Angelina Jolie Panel, not Ashkenazi Jewish Panel (well, not really, I just made that up, but it could be true). At my institution, I roll my own; I am the only genetic counselor in our hereditary cancer program, so the leap in patient volume has been particularly acute for me.

Wave

Initially I thought I was just a cranky old counselor complaining about a couple of busy days. But then I  compared my patient load in the 4 weeks before Angelina Jolie’s New York Times piece on May 14th  to the 4 weeks after. I grant you this is not exactly a scientific methodology, and I can think of all kinds of faults in the study design. But it probably provides a reasonable approximation of reality.

In the 4 weeks before May 14th, I met with 54 patients, almost all of whom were new patients, a typical volume for me. Twenty of those 54 visits (37%) were by patients who had a family history of  cancer, rather than having been diagnosed with  cancer. 35 patients underwent BRCA testing.

In comparison, in the 4 weeks after May 14th, there have been 90 clinic visits, a 66% increase compared to the prior 4 weeks.  58 patients underwent BRCA testing, also a 66% increase. It was not due to mini-epidemic of breast cancer in my neck of the woods (although Seattle has the highest incidence of breast cancer in the country) – 52 of those 90 visits (58%) were by healthy patients who had a family history of cancer.

Perhaps this bump in my workload was  a seasonal thing as people clear off their to-do lists before summer vacation, but I did not find similar patterns in April/May/June of 2011 or 2012. In fact, in 30 years of practice, I do not believe that my patient volume has ever risen so rapidly so quickly. It is fair to say this increase is largely due to Ms. Jolie’s revelation. Presumably this will eventually taper off. But I already have 20 patients on my schedule for the coming week.

I usually ask patients what motivated them to come in for genetic counseling at this particular time in their lives. A few patients have admitted that Ms. Jolie was their impetus for seeking genetic counseling.  But most were quick to say – sometimes without prompt – “I am not here because of Angelina Jolie. I just decided it was the right time to come in.” That may be true for some, but I suspect that downplaying the Angelina Jolie angle may reflect a bit of embarrassed denial on the part of others. All of us are influenced by influential people, which is why we call them influential. Influence, however, can be so subtly pervasive that we cannot detect its fingerprints. Just ask Don Draper.

Movie

I am not critical of Angelina Jolie’s decision to share her story. No matter how famous you are, it has to be difficult to share such an intensely personal narrative with just about every human being on earth. And her actions may very well help save lives and reduce suffering, which is what we are trying to do in medical care. To many of us, though, it seems paradoxically odd but not surprising that a movie star can play such a critical role in people’s lives. She is not a health care expert; she doesn’t even play a doctor on TV.

But as I have argued before, genetic counselors have less influence on patients than we like to believe. Medical decisions and healthcare utilization are shaped by a complex web of emotional, social, cultural, and psychological factors, many of which people are not willing to acknowledge or are even cognizant of, and which are beyond the control of genetic counselors.

If we want to better integrate genetic counseling into standard medical care, we need to move beyond a model of Healthcare Provider Education and  Referral Pamphlets  Are The Best Way To Get People Into Our Offices. We need to take a page from DTC genetic companies’ playbooks and make it less of a hassle for patients to utilize genetic counseling and testing. We need to tap into social psychology and tease out the factors that lead patient’s from their front doors to our office doors. The future of the genetic counseling profession depends on it.

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by | August 15, 2010 · 8:44 PM

A DNA Day Surprise

There has been much sturm und drang lately about the ramifications of direct-to-consumer (DTC) genetic testing. Depending upon your point of view, either it’s the end of the world as we know it, or it’s a door opening into the future. These opinions seem to be based on, well, opinion, rather than a careful weighing of evidence – perhaps because there is no evidence.

A recent encounter with a patient who utilized DTC testing has forced me to confront my thoughts on this issue. I am purposely avoiding mentioning the name of the company – the company does not need free advertising, and the specific company does not matter to the issues at hand. I have modified the patient’s name and some personal details to be absolutely sure that anonymity is maintained.

 

Zoe, a bright and articulate 30-something Ashkenazi Jewish woman, called me on the advice of her primary care physician. She had no specific health problems or family history concerns, but likes to keep herself educated about health matters. She maintains a healthy life style and has long been interested in learning as much as possible about her disease risks. She does not have children, but would like to start a family in the near future. She came across the website of a DTC company that happened to be offering a special deal on their genetic screen to celebrate DNA Day. So, she and her sputum took the plunge.

The results were a mish-mash of not-particularly-helpful information such as a slightly higher risk for diabetes, slightly lower risk for cardiovascular disease, wet ear wax, and curly hair (which hung plumb-straight to her shoulders). But she didn’t call me to discuss her ability to smell asparagus metabolite in urine. Instead, right there,  nestled among the results of her Measure of Intelligence and her Longevity, was a deleterious BRCA mutation.

What does this mean, she asked me over the phone? I suggested she make an appointment with me or, if she preferred, she could ask the DNA testing company if they had certified genetic counselors on staff who could work with her. The company offered her a list of genetic counselors in her area, but did not themselves employ genetic counselors.  A few days later, she was in my office.

Creature of habit that I am, I began with a pedigree, but no matter how hard I shook the family tree, the only cancer that fell out was a late onset prostate cancer in a distant relative. Not surprisingly, one side of the family contained very few females. She peppered me with questions about cancer risks, screening, and prevention. She took it all in, duly taking notes and asking appropriate questions. Although the cancer risks were concerning to her, she was reassured by the availability of options to reduce her cancer risks or to improve the chances of detecting breast cancer at an early stage. She was not ready at this stage of her life to make surgical decisions. She had alerted her family to her results, and they planned to have a family meeting after she had met with me to discuss what they would do next. In short, it went pretty much like your average BRCA Positive Informing Session. She was quite satisfied with her dealings with the DTC company, and was planning on encouraging others in her social circle to consider testing as well. I sensed no significant emotional distress beyond what you would ordinarily expect.

The lab is CLIA-approved, and out-source the BRCA Ashkenazi Panel to a well-known lab. Although the patient was concerned that sputum was not as accurate as blood, I assured her that I saw no need to repeat her testing unless she wanted independent confirmation for her own peace of mind. But this would cost her about $600, and since there was no family history of cancer, it would not be covered by her insurance. The DTC lab charged her far less than that, and in her view, she received more information for less money.

For Zoe, DTC testing was a very positive experience. She received valuable information that could very well wind up saving her life. With no family history of cancer, she would not have started breast cancer screening for nearly another decade, and would likely otherwise never have pictured a risk-reducing salpingo-oophorectomy in her future. As an aside, I think it is a forceful example of the potential advantages to offering BRCA screening to all Ashkenazi women (yes, I recognize the possible downsides and intricacies too). It also partially counters the argument that we can tell patients more from pedigrees than we can from DNA tests.

Zoe was the ideal person to utilize DTC testing. She is bright, educated, and eager to improve her health and avoid disease. She had the financial means to pay for testing and counseling (neither of which were covered by her insurer). She is emotionally stable, and the information, while surprising to her, was not particularly upsetting to Zoe or (by her report) her family. While there could certainly be long-term psychosocial issues, my gut sense was that she was not at high risk for serious problems. Of course, one could easily imagine patients who might react very differently in this situation.

My criticisms of the experience are mostly minor. The written information provided by the lab about the implications of BRCA results was fairly minimal. I tried to contact the lab to ask technical questions, but the lab’s website does not offer a readily apparent Contact Us section. It took some digging around to find a general email address, and then it took the lab 2 days to reply to me. If labs and genetic counselors are going to work together, labs need to improve their communication with health professionals. The lab rep insisted that the results were not intended for medical purposes. But, come on, BRCA results can be a matter of life and death. DTC labs need to step up to the plate and clearly acknowledge that at least some of their results have very important implications for medical care beyond telling someone to exercise more, eat less, and hold your nose when you urinate after eating asparagus.

Zoe also learned that she is a carrier for a few potentially serious genetic diseases that could affect her reproductive decisions (which she found helpful). There was also the usual collection of “Self Evident Why Did They Bother Testing For This Stuff” traits like photic sneeze response, odor detection, pain sensitivity, etc. While it is easy to make fun of these, in spirit, the information is not very different than the type of information that couples seek from sperm and egg donors when going through assisted reproduction.

We need to report our experiences with patients like Zoe as case reports and with larger qualitative and quantitative studies. We have much to learn, and it can help inform policy decisions, patient experiences, and professional debates. We should not reject DTC testing outright; there are situations where it in fact it may be quite appropriate. Until we study the phenomenon, we have no right to form extreme opinions about it. Without information, it’s a an argument, not a debate.

Genetic counselors are sensitive to the psychosocial ramifications of genetic disease. But if we insist that everyone who has a genetic test first see a genetic counselor, are  we creating an aura of specialness and mystery about genetics that can be a factor in the development of psychosocial sequelae? Should we be setting aside genetic testing from other medical tests and treating it as SOMETHING VERY SPECIAL? Perhaps for some patients, genetic testing is not such a big deal, but if we insist that it is a big deal, we might be contributing to some of the very psychosocial problems we are looking to minimize.

I would like to hear from other genetic counselors who have worked with patients who have gone through DTC testing – the good, the bad, and the ugly.

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