Emerging Trends in AYA Cancer Care: Genetic Testing
by Diana Merino,PhD
Critical Mass asked me to share with you my thoughts on an important emerging trend in AYA cancer care: genetic testing. The term certainly gets thrown around a lot, but there is much more to genetic testing than what we hear on TV or social media.
By reading our DNA, genetic testing allows us to peek into the genome — that enormous collection of genes stored in every one of our cells that provides instructions for every function happening inside us. Although we have just recently hit the tip of this genomic iceberg, we are already seeing benefits derived from our genetic code, especially in fighting cancer.
Genetic testing is a type of medical test that analyzes our DNA, the genetic material we inherit from our parents. These powerful medical tests identify differences and similarities in our DNA, and because our genetic material is unique to each one of us, they are important when seeking to personalize services, interventions, or treatments we may need. In the field of cancer, genetic testing plays a huge role in personalizing cancer prevention and treatment strategies.
Although learning this may be frightening, this information may also be extremely beneficial as it could help medical teams develop unique cancer prevention strategies that keep cancer at bay or may include small changes in cancer screening frequency and lifestyle practices.
Genetic testing is also a crucial tool in cancer care. Genetic findings are being harnessed to provide personalized treatment alternatives to patients with cancer. Testing a patient’s tumor may give doctors important clues about how to treat the tumor more effectively and testing a patient’s healthy DNA may predict how they will respond to treatment. Testing the tumor’s genome also enables the use of targeted therapies that zero-in on unique mutations found in the tumor, unleashing the drug’s toxic effects on those tumor cells alone, and reducing the devastating side effects commonly associated with systemic chemotherapies.
Adolescents and young adults with cancer have much to gain from the ground-breaking discoveries happening daily in this field as targeted therapies improve survival outcomes, most often without the lingering side effects adolescent and young adult cancer survivors have to endure for the rest of their (hopefully) long lives. As genetic testing becomes a more common practice in cancer care, we will all become witnesses to the transformative power of the genome and the powerful information we carry inside us.
If we have barely skimmed the surface of this iceberg, just imagine the future!
This piece is part of the 2018 Adolescent and Young Adult Cancer Awareness Week education series. You can download the Young Adult Cancer Advocacy in Action Toolkit here: https://goo.gl/56rJvk
Diana Merino serves as Science Policy Analyst at Friends of Cancer Research. She is passionate about disseminating scientific research findings and implementing solutions to accelerate progress in cancer care. Her own experience with the disease drives her desire to improve awareness of the needs cancer patients and survivors face, and the importance of cancer research. Diana received her PhD in cancer genetics from the University of Toronto and a MSc in human health and nutritional sciences from the University of Guelph in Ontario. She pursued her postdoctoral research work at the National Cancer Institute (NCI) Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics, Radiation Epidemiology Branch. Her work focused on identifying the genetic determinants of second cancers in cancer survivors, and elucidating risk for second sarcoma in survivors of pediatric and young adult cancers. Learn more about her work at Friends here: https://www.focr.org
