Efficacy versus effectiveness of clinical genetic testing criteria for BRCA1 and BRCA2 hereditary mutations in incident breast cancer
Increasing evidence supports the benefit of identifying BRCA1 and BRCA2 germline mutations in early breast cancer. Selection of patients for genetic testing is based on defined criteria taking individual and family history related factors into account. It is important to make a distinction between e...
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Published in | Familial cancer Vol. 16; no. 2; pp. 187 - 193 |
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Main Authors | , , , , , , |
Format | Journal Article |
Language | English |
Published |
Dordrecht
Springer Netherlands
01.04.2017
Springer Nature B.V |
Subjects | |
Online Access | Get full text |
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Summary: | Increasing evidence supports the benefit of identifying
BRCA1
and
BRCA2
germline mutations in early breast cancer. Selection of patients for genetic testing is based on defined criteria taking individual and family history related factors into account. It is important to make a distinction between
efficacy
and
effectiveness
of BRCA testing criteria.
Efficacy
can be defined as the performance under ideal circumstances, whereas
effectiveness
refers to its real life performance. To allow for an unbiased and detailed evaluation of efficacy and effectiveness of the Swedish BRCA testing criteria, we retrospectively analyzed a prospectively collected cohort of 273 breast cancer patients from the well-characterized, population-based, single-site All Breast Cancer in Malmö (ABiM) study. The patients were diagnosed with breast cancer during the years 2007 through 2009. Out of 20 mutation carriers identified, 13 fulfilled Swedish criteria at time of diagnosis. Thus, the efficacy of these criteria was 65%. Excluding three patients in whom a mutation was already known at time of diagnosis, only 3/17 had been identified in the clinical routine, corresponding to an effectiveness of 18%. Here we detail the reasons why mutation carriers in our cohort were not detected though routine health care. In conclusion, effectiveness of BRCA testing criteria was much lower than efficacy. Our results indicate that current testing criteria and procedures associated with
BRCA1
and
BRCA2
testing are insufficient. There is room for improvement of their efficacy, but even more so regarding effectiveness. Clinical BRCA testing routines need to be critically revised. |
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Bibliography: | ObjectType-Article-1 SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1 ObjectType-Feature-2 content type line 23 |
ISSN: | 1389-9600 1573-7292 |
DOI: | 10.1007/s10689-016-9953-x |