The Speed and Scope of Genetic Updates | My Gene Counsel

by | Aug 3, 2026 | Publications | 0 comments

The Speed and Scope of Genetic Updates: What 2,620 Maintenance Actions Tell Us About Precision Medicine

August 2026 | White Paper

A genetic test result is not a fixed fact. The clinical meaning of a result changes as guidelines evolve, risk estimates are revised, and new treatment options emerge. For patients and their clinicians, a result issued two years ago may no longer reflect current recommendations — and most health systems have no scalable way to address that gap.

My Gene Counsel’s 2025 white paper puts numbers to this problem for the first time. Across its 103-gene oncology database, mGC logged 2,620 unique maintenance actions in 2025 — 782 visible notifications sent to patients and clinicians, and 1,838 silent updates that kept Living Lab Reports current without triggering unnecessary alerts. Seventy percent of the maintenance work happened invisibly. Nearly three-quarters of all notifications involved medical management changes: updates to screening protocols, treatment options, or follow-up recommendations. This is not routine housekeeping. It is clinically consequential work happening continuously in the background.

The five-year trend makes the stakes clearer. Hereditary cancer notifications rose from 181 in 2023 to 472 in 2025, with projections approaching 980 by 2028. As genetic testing expands across oncology, primary care, and OB-GYN, the volume of results requiring active maintenance will only grow. The challenge is no longer identifying who should be tested — it is keeping the meaning of those results current after the test is complete.

Download the full white paper here.

Read all of our previous White Papers 

  1. My Gene Counsel. Oncology Insights: The Speed and Scope of Genetic Updates. May 2025. (link here) 
  2. My Gene Counsel. Accelerating Beyond Transactional Genetic Testing. October 2023. (link here)
  3. My Gene Counsel. Paradigm Shift in Genetic Testing: Genetics for a Lifetime. May 2022. (link here)
  4. My Gene Counsel. Precision Medicine in Practice: Keeping Patients Up to Date After Genetic Testing. May 2021. (link here)