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Are we ready for personalized cancer risk management? The view from breast‐care providers
Author(s) -
Komatsu Hiroko,
Yagasaki Kaori
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
international journal of nursing practice
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.62
H-Index - 55
eISSN - 1440-172X
pISSN - 1322-7114
DOI - 10.1111/ijn.12115
Subject(s) - multidisciplinary approach , medicine , breast cancer , personalized medicine , family medicine , genetic counseling , health care , nursing , genetic testing , medline , cancer , bioinformatics , social science , genetics , sociology , political science , law , economics , biology , economic growth
Personalized medicine, the tailoring of prevention and treatment, is the future of routine clinical practice. This approach has started to appear in genetic testing for predisposition to hereditary breast and ovarian cancer ( HBOC ). We explored how breast‐care providers perceived HBOC risk management, using grounded theory. This study found that the frontline healthcare providers perceived HBOC risk management as still being neglected in breast cancer care. Emerging challenges included treatment priority, hesitancy to deal with sensitive issues, easily missed risks, genetic data not being shared among multidisciplinary professionals, and patients being lost to follow‐up. Oncology nurses are ideally placed to facilitate communication and utilization of genetic information among multidisciplinary professionals. Specialized outpatient clinics need to be established to follow up individuals at high risk. There is a need to create a system to meet the future demands of personalized medicine in nursing practice.