Genetic Testing for Cancer Risk in the UAE

Hereditary cancers are estimated to account for 10% of all cancers. Clinical genetics initially provided genetic testing to cancer patients and/or those with a strong family history of cancer. Hereditary cancer gene testing became more widely available as a result of research into inherited genes and the revolutionary development of genetic testing technologies. As a result, testing has been expanded to include medical specialties other than clinical genetics. The increased testing rate resulted in the identification of more patients with pathogenic mutations, but it also resulted in a very high detection rate of variants of uncertain significance, which can cause further confusion among families and distress in patients. Therefore, a crucial suggestion would be that multigene testing should be considered only after proper evaluation for clinical suspicion of hereditary cancer susceptibility, which would be best offered by clinical genetics and/or doctors trained in oncogenetics.