Breast cancer runs in Kim Fielding’s family.
Worried that she too could fall victim to the disease, Fielding sought peace of mind from genetic testing.
After visiting MedCan, a private clinic in Toronto, paying $1,600 and spitting into a vial, she learned that she was not genetically predisposed to breast cancer.
It doesn’t mean she’s guaranteed to never contract the disease, but it does mean she doesn’t share the DNA “marker” that often signifies an increased likelihood of it.
“You do sort of feel a bit of relief, even though it’s not a concrete answer,” she tells CTV News.
Breast cancer isn’t the only disease that can be potentially foretold by genetic testing – Alzheimer’s disease and obesity are two others that tests are offered for.
The testing looks for genetic mutations, which may have been inherited from parents or acquired through chance.
However, just having the mutations doesn’t make it definite that you’ll find yourself battling the disease in question.
“It doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll get the disease,” says Dr. Mala Bahl, an oncologist and haematologist at Grand River Hospital in Kitchener.
“Certain gene abnormalities carry with them a risk of cancer, but they’re never a 100 per cent risk.”
Fielding and her husband Andy were tested for the whole range of diseases MedCan offers testing for.
“To actually see that it’s available now, it was pretty neat,” says Andy Fielding.
“It felt like Star Trek a little bit – how can you test this with what we did?”
Andy’s results helped give him a push to stay in control of his health.
“It said here I was diabetic … so I made a conscious decision to reverse that, and I was able to do that,” he says.
CTV’s Rosie Del Campo is looking at the ins and outs of genetic testing in a special series airing this week on CTV News.
