Prospective parents who are afraid to have children because of an hereditary risk of some cancers may eliminate that risk for future descendants, a conference in Dublin has been told.
‘Gathering Around Cancer’ in Croke Park, which brought together cancer specialists from Ireland and across the world, heard that genetic markers for a range of hereditary cancers have been catalogued.
Through genetic testing of embryos pre-implantation, those with a gene carrying a predisposition to cancer and those without it can be identified.
In the process to eliminate the hereditary cancer, embryos with the gene predisposed to cancer are withheld, while embryos without that gene can be implanted. This ensures the hereditary cancer is removed from the family’s bloodline.
Dr Ken Offit, chief of the clinical genetics service at the Memorial Sloan Cancer Center in New York, instanced the case of young couples “that don’t want to have children” because of a predisposition to hereditary cancers including leukaemia.
Certainty Dr Offit, who is also professor of medicine at Weill Medical College, Cornell University, said the process could offer such couples certainty of their descendants not succumbing to some hereditary cancers .
He said knowledge of the make-up of genetic susceptibility to different types of cancers was increasing rapidly and timely intervention would help individuals with a genetic risk of cancer to clarify their risk status and ultimately prolong life.
A national gene scan which would look at the genetic make-up of all people in the USA was a possibility, he said.
The conference also heard presentations on the ongoing need for chemotherapy in cancer treatment and the need to find funding models for research into anti-cancer treatments.
Dr Offit will also deliver the annual O’Brien Science Lecture in UCD today on the subject of ‘Personalised Cancer Genomics: Precision Medicine Meets Prevention’.
