Some weeks ago
I went for genetic counselling. Here are some of important pointers I brought home from the consultation session:
A person contracted cancer after 50 years old is not considered as belongs to the ‘high-risk’ group if the trend of the general population is the same. In Singapore context, currently most of the cancers occurred after the age of 50.
Genetic test is very expensive because it involves a sizeable number to be tested, so usually only done on the advice of the doctor. Our body system is very complex. The genes lie within the chromosomes and human beings have 23 pairs of them. Some chromosomes carry thousands of important genes while some carry only a few. There are about 20,000 genes located on one of the 23 chromosome pairs. So far about 12,800 genes have been mapped to specific locations on each of the chromosomes. .However the exact number of genes in the human genome is still unknown. That’s why genetic test is not foolproof as it is impossible to test every gene!
I also come to understand that present available ovarian cancer marker is not a sensitive indicator as it is often to give early signal. The reading can accelerate within a short frame of time. In other word, it is not sensitive enough to pre-empt ovarian cancer even one does it regularly. This makes ovarian cancer difficult to prevent and treat as most patients are diagnosed at an advanced stage.
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