Breast and ovarian cancers remain to be the leading cancers in the Philippines with breast cancer making up 31% and ovarian cancers making up 6% of all cancers in Filipino women in 2018. While majority of cancer cases are sporadic, there is a subset of cases that is familial and inherited.
These two kinds of cancer were tackled in the second telegenetics webinar held by the National Institutes of Health- Institute of Human Genetics on 20 July 2020 entitled, “Telegenetics Cancer Counseling: Hereditary Breast & Ovarian Cancer – Patient Cases.” The main speaker was Dr. Mercy Laurino, a Clinical Assistant Professor at the UP College of Medicine and a certified genetic counselor from Seattle, Washington, USA. A distinguished panel of experts composed of Dr. Rodney Dofitas (surgical oncologist), Dr. Jean Anne Toral (gynecologic oncologist), and Dr. Eva Maria Cutiongco-De la Paz (clinical geneticist) gave their insights on the value of hereditary breast and ovarian cancer genetic counseling.
It was emphasized that oncology physicians, nurses, and other health care providers have the essential role to identify red flags in patients that could indicate heritable breast and ovarian cancer; provide patients and their families an opportunity to seek genetic counseling; provide targeted therapies; and engage in earlier screening and surveillance along with other interventions that would lead to better outcomes. Telegenetics as a modality in providing genetic risk assessment and genetic counseling services given the current pandemic situation was also presented.
There were 155 attendees, mostly physicians, nurses, and other health workers with a few lay persons. The webinar was sponsored by the Clinical Genetics and Genomics Counseling Care Services Inc., a group of medical geneticists and genetic counselors in the Philippines. The group was formed to support individuals and families in navigating the complexities of genetic and genomic testing methodologies and to translate relevant genetic information necessary for their care. For further information about their services, please feel free to visit their website: cggccs.com or send an email to: info@cggccs.com.
The next webinar in this series on the topic of prenatal genetics will be on 24 August 2020.
