Although the price of genome sequencing is rapidly becoming more affordable to the general population, to what extent these tests will impact a person’s lifestyle and medical treatment choices remains unclear. By analyzing life-long data collected from thousands of twins, researchers led by renowned Johns Hopkins oncologist Bert Vogelstein tested how well whole genome sequencing could predict an individual’s risk of developing 24 common diseases.
Their analysis, published today (April 2) in Science Translational Medicine, showed that most people are likely to get negative results for the majority of the diseases studied, thus failing to provide any actionable information. For example, while sequencing tests are effective at predicting cancer risks in people with hereditary cancers, they are not as informative for people who lack a ...
