subject: Diseases That Can Be Predicted With Gene Tests [print this page] Anybody can be tested with gene test, a process of examining a person's genes to determine whether he or she is at risks of obtaining genetic diseases, which can also be passed on to her or his children. Included in the genetic testing are a variety of laboratory techniques to analyze genes or markers near the genes that may help trace the family history of genetic illnesses, and determine symptoms of a possible genetic disorder.
In predictive gene tests, the researchers may look for illnesses that are already afflicting family members as a consequence of inheriting a faulty gene from parents. Once the gene is mutated, the mutation can be carried in the reproductive cells and inherited by the offspring, which will then be present in the cells throughout the human body. With a genetic testing, such mutation can be detected in the white blood cells in a blood samples.
The said predictive genetic tests can be used to detect diseases like cystic fibrosis, and Tay-Sachs. As of late, researchers are developing diseases to detect more medical conditions including the predisposition to Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis or ALS, deadly nerve degeneration called Lou Gehrig's disease; Alzheimer's disease, Huntington's disease, which is really fatal and which can lead to dementia or death, and dangerously high cholesterol.
Certain types of cancer that run in the family can also be detected with a Gene test. Researchers are able to identify genes that cause cancers. Many of the diseases are rare that only afflict a few individuals. For example, a childhood eye cancer called as retinoblastoma, Wilm's tumor, a kidney cancer that happens before the age of 5, and the Li-Fraumeni syndrome, in which young adults and children in the family contract different cancers such as brain tumors, acute leukemia, sarcomas in the bones and soft tissues of the legs and arms, and breast cancer. In as early as 1993, scientists were able to identify the specific gene responsible for the familial adenomatous polyposis, which is an inherited predisposition to precancerous polyps, which is believed to be the gene that causes 1% colon cancers.
In more recent researches, scientists have classified gene mutations associated with inherited tendencies toward common types of cancers such as colon and breast. According to scientists, individuals who carry these specific mutated genes are also at risk of developing other types of cancer. For instance, women having a modified copy of BRCA1 breast cancer vulnerability gene are also vulnerable to ovarian cancer.
Those who have inherited cancer genes are likely to contract cancer at a young age because the gene that makes them predisposed to cancer is already present in the cells all throughout their lives, waiting for the cue when the normal allele is inactivated or lost before the uncontrolled growth of cancer sets.
Gene tests are a complex process with varied sensitivity as far as the ability to detect mutations or identify patients with mutated genes or who would likely to develop certain diseases is concerned.
In case the gene cannot be directly classified but can be located within particular areas of a chromosome, a linkage analysis is recommended. Linkage analysis is an indirect testing that requires additional DNA from the afflicted family member for comparison.
