New Breast Cancer Screening Tests

            A start-up factory in Silicon Valley is offering an ovarian and breast cancer screening test from a saliva sample.  It is very inexpensive and seems to be promising.  At the same time, Quest Diagnostics and LabCorp have joined forces with French researchers (and any other companies that want to join the effort) to pool their data in order to gain more knowledge on the breast cancer causing genes, BRCA1 and BRCA2.

            A company by the name of Color Genomics has started a BRCA testing plan.  BRCA testing has been limited to women that already have cancer or those with a family history of breast or ovarian cancer.  The tests will cost about $249 and will test not only BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes, but 17 other cancer causing genes, one tenth the price of other tests on the market.  Many insurance companies tend not to pay for these tests so the company has decided to make them cheap enough for woman to pay out of pocket so no one has to deal with that hassle that comes with insurance companies.  Color Genomics has also decided that a program would be started to give woman who could not afford the test a chance to get it done for free.

            Currently in America, only woman over the age of 30 with cancer or a family history qualify for the BRCA test meaning that about half of the woman with these deadly mutations do not qualify.  A large percentage of the cases develop the mutation from their fathers so the family history of cancer is not evident.  Color Genomics hopes to expand the testing range and give more women a sense of relief and comfort that they and their families will live long happy lives due to this testing.

            Like any other new discovery in the science world, there are people that support it and people that do not.  I however support the use of this new screening because it is a good way to allow woman to discover how at risk they are of developing these cancers.  With the help of the BRCA screening test, woman at risk of cancer will be able to detect the tumors early on because they know how high the chances are. Many people and companies support Color Genomics and they have already raised about $15 million.