That’s according to researchers who discovered that it often improved care and offered greater advantages than existing tests.
Physicians examined 281 children’s malignancies’ whole genomic sequences. It gave them more details on their condition and the course of their treatment in close to one-third of the cases.
It helped make decisions about the care of twenty children that would not have been possible without “gold standard” whole genome sequencing.
Most cancer forms undergo some form of genetic testing, which searches for specific abnormalities in the DNA of tumor cells (or blood cells in the case of blood cancers).
This may directly affect how well the cancer responds to chemotherapy or radiation therapy, for example.
However, a child’s genetic makeup is very crucial when it comes to cancer, which is why numerous tests are frequently carried out when the youngster is receiving treatment.
In addition to looking at every mutation that might be present in a tumor or blood cancer cell, a whole genome sequence test also looks at the person’s “normal” genetic background, which is represented by genes unrelated to disease.
