Postby orcasres » Thu Dec 18, 2014 4:11 pm
I can't speak to the amount of time it is taking to get your path results, but it sounds like an unusually long amount of time. I had surgery on Thursday, first path results on Monday, and the additional testing they needed to do by Tuesday. In the US, the DNA testing is not requested by the surgeon normally. In my case, I was referred to a genetic counselor; the pathologist actually recommended it in the report. It is relatively expensive ($3000 for me - once they identified the suspect gene other relatives would be tested at about half the cost) primarily because of the patents held on the process. Also, there are folks who just do not want to know. So they need to discuss the situation, explain the risks and benefits, and let the patient decide. It was a no brainer for me, especially since insurance covered the cost, but the counselor was nearly in tears as she talked about one patient who already had had colon and endometrial cancer and whose brothers and sisters could not afford the test.
So if you were a US patient, I would be pretty certain that your genetic testing was not automatic or you would have been told it was done, but the system may work differently in Canada. It does require blood samples, and I would have thought you would be told that they were specifically for genetic testing if that was the planned use.
Try and relax for the holidays. Easy for me to say, I know. Lois
63 yo F
Colon resection Sept. 2010
pT3N0M0 Stage 2A
Medullary Tumor 6.5cm long
Lymphovascular invasion
Lynch negative
12 FOLFOX 11/2010 to 5/2011 8 w/Oxi
NED so far