Genetic Counseling and Testing Offers Important Information for Breast Cancer Patients

Anees B. Chagpar, director of the Breast Center at Smilow Cancer Hospital at Yale-New Haven Hospital in Connecticut, discusses why certain patients should receive genetic counseling and testing for breast cancer.

Chagpar says genetic testing should be couched in with genetic counseling as a framework. Genetic counseling should be done prior to testing, in order to understand which genetic tests should be administered and how to interpret the results.

Genetic counseling benefits people who are at an increased risk of breast cancer, Chagpar says. Such factors include immediate family members who developed breast cancer at a very young age or developed bilateral breast cancer, or a family history of male breast cancer, among others.