Comment by mlyle
4 days ago
BRCA is one risk factor for certain cancers. You can get genetic counseling to understand your cancer risk looking at this and other markers.
In this context, though, we're talking about measuring the actual cancer (including the tumor's mutations) to determine what therapies it is likely to be responsive to.
e.g. this: https://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/treatment/types/biomarke... not this: https://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/causes-prevention/geneti...
I don't think anybody in this thread moved to talking about tumor sequencing.
I'm just responding to:
"""Genetic tests for cancer are a different kind of genetic test. They test the tumor itself for mutations that are present only in the tumor, not in the rest of the body."""
Strictly speaking, BRCA is a genetic test for cancer (even if it's only a "risk factor"), and it's done on the regular genome, not on the cancer.
(None of this is important or really relevant)
The article is talking about tumor sequencing:
> You may need to push for comprehensive genetic testing. Some doctors were weird about this and didn’t order it promptly, even after telling me they would. My surgeon, who told me he’d get it done, eventually referred me out to an oncologist. This caused a multi-month delay to getting genetic results, since the first results were done on the surgery tumor, not the biopsy tumor.
The quote further upthread lost the last bit, which is pretty clearly talking about tumor sequencing.
> Strictly speaking, BRCA is a genetic test for cancer (even if it's only a "risk factor"), and it's done on the regular genome, not on the cancer.
Yes... that's why I clarified that I believed we/the article were talking about tumor testing and not BRCA (which is mentioned in the second link I gave).