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Offering predictive testing for Huntington disease in a medical genetics clinic: Practical applications
Author(s) -
Bennett Robin L.,
Bird Thomas D.,
Teri Linda
Publication year - 1993
Publication title -
journal of genetic counseling
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.867
H-Index - 52
eISSN - 1573-3599
pISSN - 1059-7700
DOI - 10.1007/bf00962073
Subject(s) - predictive testing , medical genetics , genetic counseling , disease , genetic testing , medicine , huntington's disease , diagnostic test , human genetics , family medicine , psychiatry , genetics , pathology , pediatrics , biology , gene
Predictive testing for Huntington disease is presently offered in a select few medical genetics centers in the United States. This is in part due to the labor intensive counseling and psychological testing suggested by the research protocols. We discuss some specific suggestions for establishing programs for Huntington disease predictive testing within pre‐existing medical genetics clinics to encourage more centers to offer presymptomatic testing. This will allow more at risk individuals the opportunity to consider predictive testing and cut down the expenses of traveling to the few predictive testing centers that currently exist. The counseling principals will remain similar to those discussed here, even following the identification of the Huntington disease mutation .