On Friday evening, December 18, 2020, the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved Moderna’s mRNA COVID-19 vaccine for emergency use, joining Pfizer’s previously approved vaccine in the fight against COVID-19. In previous articles, I...
On Friday, December 12, 2020, the United States Food and Drug Administration issued its first Emergency Use Authorization for a COVID-19 vaccine. The FDA’s approval of this vaccine, developed by Pfizer, followed recent approvals of the same vaccine by the UK,...
A 20-year-old man came in to see a surgeon and get genetic testing based on a history of breast cancer and a pathogenic BRCA2 variant in the family. The man’s mother, who accompanied him to see the surgeon, had been diagnosed with breast cancer in her late 20s...
Pfizer and Moderna grabbed headlines, and ushered in hope, in announcing this month that each company has vaccines that preliminary data suggest being 90-94% effective in preventing COVID-19 infections. This news is a much-needed salve to a world that has surpassed...
A 42-year-old woman underwent a breast biopsy due to an abnormal mammogram. Even though the biopsy analysis yielded benign findings, the woman’s family history with pancreatic cancer prompted the surgeon to order a 70-gene panel test to assess if she had...
A gynecologist ordered genetic testing for a 16-year-old girl with an unspecified breast finding and a limited family history of cancer. Genetic testing detected a variant of unknown significance (VUS) in BRCA2. Since this patient had this breast finding, a...