DNA-Based Screening, Effective Clinical Care Must Be Combined to Improve Health, ACMG Says

In a new guideline published 3/16/2021 in Genetics in Medicine, the American College of Medical Genetics and Genomics (ACMG) provided some practical advice for the use of DNA-based screening to improve population health.

The guidance is specifically focused on issues related to implementation strategies for DNA-based screening, which the ACMG is setting apart from the DNA-based diagnostic testing that has become a larger part of healthcare within the last few decades. In DNA-based diagnostic testing, an individual is offered testing because of a health concern and therefore has an increased chance of a positive genetic test compared to most people.

DNA-based screening, however, is a system of testing that is offered to all patients, in order to identify whether people who were not previously suspected of being at genetic risk of disease might develop such a condition at some point in their life.

Source: https://www.genomeweb.com/sequencing/dna-based-screening-effective-clinical-care-must-be-combined-improve-health-acmg-says