Initial Risk Evaluation of Hereditary Breast and Ovarian Cancer（HBOC） in Department of Breast Surgery and Establishment of Genetic Counseling System

Abstract

Genetic counseling for the genetic testing of Hereditary Breast and Ovarian Cancer (HBOC) will be needed in municipal hospitals based on recent revisions to the Breast Cancer guidelines and the introduction of PARP inhibitors using a companion diagnosis in Japan. We established a genetic counseling office in 2018 and started performing initial risk evaluations for breast cancer patients.

We provided information on HBOC for breast cancer patients meeting the criteria for an initial risk evaluation by the NCCN guidelines and conducted genetic counseling for candidates with a genetic specialist, nurse specialist, and attending doctor.

Approximately 20% of breast cancer patients meet the criteria for HBOC; however, only a few request genetic counseling and testing. The counseling office needs to be carefully managed because the number of patients requesting genetic counseling and testing will increase once the management of HBOC starts being covered by the national health insurance system.