Hereditary Cancer Risk: BRCA, HBOC Syndrome and the Case for Family Testing

The most common genetic cancer, as it's the most commonly tested for, is breast cancer. Breast and ovarian cancer has a syndrome called hereditary breast and ovarian cancer syndrome, and that is the most common because it is right now the most tested for. However, there are many more cancers which can be inherited.

That is the most in-thing right now, which is longevity testing, which can tell you your actual biological age. Supposing you are 30 years of age by your date of birth, but because of stress your body may actually be 40 years old biologically. You can prevent that: we can first study why your body is aging faster, and then you can modify your lifestyle based on the genetics, what you should eat and what you should not eat and what kind of therapy you should take, and it gives you a lot of a personalised report.

For example, sickle cell anaemia is caused by a point mutation where only one letter in the genome is changing. So what we can do is if A is becoming B, we make the B back to A and edit that gene, and deliver it through an IV cannula in the form of a solution. That is what is going to get integrated into the patient, and the disease can be cured. That is what gene therapy is.

Well, not yet. What we can do is, supposing somebody in my family got cancer, I can get my genes tested so I know whether I am at risk of getting that cancer, and then I can try to catch it early, because once you're at a last stage it becomes difficult to cure. If you catch it early you can still cure the cancer.

The recommendation is to test at least 50 genes. If somebody is interested I can send the list across to the Jivo team and they can share it with everybody.

About 30 percent, according to Dr. Nathany, a share she describes as underrated and underdiagnosed.

An inherited genetic syndrome, including BRCA mutations, that raises the risk of breast and ovarian cancer and is the most commonly tested-for hereditary cancer syndrome today.

Not yet. What it can do is identify family members at inherited risk so they can be screened and, if cancer does develop, caught earlier.

Testing the patient's genes can reveal whether relatives carry the same inherited mutation, allowing those relatives to be screened proactively rather than waiting for symptoms.