Most women who may benefit from BRCA-related genetic counseling do not receive it

Recent findings showed that more than 80% of women who met nationally recommended criteria to receive counseling and testing for gene variants that put them at greater risk for breast cancer did not receive this type of referral.

Based on current guidance from the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF), women who have a family history of certain types of cancer should be screened to determine if they have an increased risk for BRCA1 or BRCA2 mutations. Additionally, women with an ethnicity or ancestry linked to the genetic mutations — for example, Ashkenazi Jewish ancestry — should also be screened.

The USPSTF’s “referral criteria have changed over time as the USPSTF analyzed new evidence,” Daniel J. Parente, MD, PhD, an assistant professor of family medicine and community health at the University of Kansas Medical Center, told Healio Primary Care. “It was not clear how many women met current referral criteria, or how often physicians actually made appropriate referrals.”

Parente conducted a needs assessment survey among 397 English-speaking women from an urban medical center.…

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