Research Article Barriers and Facilitators for Utilization of Genetic Counseling and Risk Assessment Services in Young Female Breast Cancer Survivors

Copyright © 2012 Beth Anderson et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Introduction. Women diagnosed with breast cancer at a young age are more likely to carry a cancer predisposing genetic mutation. Per the current NCCN recommendations, women diagnosed under age 50 should be referred to cancer genetic counseling for further risk evaluation. This study seeks to assess patient-reported barriers and facilitators to receiving genetic counseling and risk assessment among a community-based population of young breast cancer survivors (YBCS). Methods. Through the Michigan Cancer Surveillance Program, a state-based cancer registry, 488 women diagnosed with breast cancer before age 50 in 2006-200