Patients who have their whole genomes sequenced should be told if they have any of 57 genetic variants that put them at risk for serious disease, according to new recommendations from the American College of Medical Genetics and Genomics that came out yesterday (March 21). Doctors should give their patients this information whether or not they ask for it, even if the findings are incidental to the reason the sequencing was done in the first place, the document said.
Doctors testing for a genetic variant will usually have sequencing done for only that gene. But soon sequencing a single gene and sequencing an entire genome will cost the same amount, ScienceInsider reported, and incidental findings will become more common.
The 14 authors of the recommendations ...
