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Genetic susceptibility for specific cancers
Author(s) -
Severin Matthew J.
Publication year - 1999
Publication title -
cancer
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 3.052
H-Index - 304
eISSN - 1097-0142
pISSN - 0008-543X
DOI - 10.1002/(sici)1097-0142(19991201)86:11+<2564::aid-cncr13>3.0.co;2-p
Subject(s) - medicine , genetic counseling , duty , family medicine , colorectal cancer , health care , genetic testing , prima facie , cancer , cancer genetics , breast cancer , law , genetics , political science , biology
The use of genetic profiling techniques to detect individuals with an increased susceptibility to heritable cancers has provoked recent legal interest in the duties of the attending physician and in the rights of patients and their families. In the current study specific prima facie and recently litigated cases are presented and explored to delineate the issues facing physicians and to illustrate the prerogatives of patients who are caught up in a heritable cancer enigma. Various courts have attempted to answer questions involving lawsuits in which incidents of breast/ovarian carcinoma and colon carcinoma have provoked claims of negligence against health care providers. Health care workers involved in the care of these patients have specific duties to these individuals. It would appear that physicians are being forced to assume the additional duty of delving into a patient's family history of cancer through multiple generations. This duty is followed by a responsibility to provide detailed counseling to those patients in whom such activity impacts the diagnosis and management of familial cancer. Cancer 1999;86:2564–9. © 1999 American Cancer Society.