A 27-year-old woman, who five years earlier had learned she harbored a pathogenic variant in the BRCA1 gene, was now considering removing her breasts and ovaries to reduce her risk for breast and ovarian cancer. She came to see a genetic counselor to discuss her...
A woman in her 40s had surgery to remove a gynecologic tumor. During the procedure, the surgeon noted that she had numerous polyps in her small intestine that may be causing it to undergo intussusception, meaning one section of bowel slides into the next. The surgeon...
Around a decade ago, a psychologist in her mid-50s attended a wellness conference, where everyone was discussing a popular direct-to-consumer genetic testing company. The possibility of learning about the underlying genetics of her inherited traits piqued her...
A 46-year-old woman who claimed to have pathogenic variants in both BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes and a strong family history of breast cancer came to a surgeon seeking risk-reducing mastectomies. Although this woman did not have breast cancer, based on her account of her...
A 36-year-old, non-English-speaking, female emigrant from the Middle East came to see a genetic counselor at a California healthcare system in 2019. She had recently moved to the state, and in the process of reestablishing care at a large academic healthcare facility,...
