Faculty, Staff and Student Publications
Publication Date
11-15-2024
Journal
Cancer
Abstract
BACKGROUND: Accurate variant classification and relaying reclassified results to patients is critical for hereditary cancer care delivery. Over a 5- to 10-year period, 6%-15% of variants undergo reclassification. As the frequency of reclassifications increases, the issue of whether, how, when, and which providers should recontact patients becomes important but remains contentious.
METHODS: The authors used inductive thematic analysis to analyze open-ended comments offered by oncologists and genetic counselors (GCs) from a large national survey.
RESULTS: Of the 634 oncologists and cancer GCs, 126 (20%) offered substantive free-text comments. Four thematic areas emerged: 1) ambiguity over professional responsibility to recontact, 2) logistical challenges with recontact, 3) importance of inter-institutional communication, and 4) suggested solutions. Some oncologists felt that laboratories, not them, are responsible for recontact; others believed that ordering providers/GCs were responsible; GCs readily acknowledged their own responsibility in recontact but added important caveats. Besides the lack of up-to-date patient contact information, providers raised unique challenges with recontact: financial instability of laboratories, lack of clinical resources, contacting family members, and accumulating burden of reclassifications. There were numerous calls for developing practice guidelines on prioritizing variants for recontact and discussion on whether duty for recontact may be fulfilled via unidirectional, low touch modalities. Potential solutions to recontact including national databases and patient facing databases were discussed.
CONCLUSIONS: The authors confirm previous themes of stakeholder opinions and add previously unreported contextual details to qualify those themes. Clarifying provider responsibilities through professional guidelines for reclassification and recontact addressing the subthemes identified here will better serve all constituencies.
Keywords
Humans, Genetic Counseling, Neoplasms, Surveys and Questionnaires, Genetic Testing, Oncologists, Female, Male, Genetic Predisposition to Disease, Duty to Recontact, reclassification, cancer, oncologist, genetic counselor, open-ended items, survey, qualitative
DOI
10.1002/cncr.35429
PMID
38843377
PMCID
PMC11966614
PubMedCentral® Posted Date
4-3-2025
PubMedCentral® Full Text Version
Author MSS
Published Open-Access
yes
Included in
Bioinformatics Commons, Biomedical Informatics Commons, Medical Sciences Commons, Neoplasms Commons, Oncology Commons