Preventive healthcare revolution

More than 100 clinicians and researchers, and 50 peak health and patient advocacy groups, have right on their side in pushing for the benefits of genomic medicine to be made available to all Australians, regardless of income or location. Publicly funded genetic testing is mostly only available to confirm a diagnosis or to diagnose a limited range of conditions for high-risk individuals. It’s also accessed by cancer patients fortunate enough to be linked with cutting-edge scientific institutes. Rapid advances in genomic medicine, health editor Natasha Robinson writes, comprise a once-in-a-century transformation of healthcare, with the potential to save countless lives from premature deaths from common chronic diseases, and prevent widespread suffering. The subject, reported in Saturday’s paper, is explored in depth in Health & Wellbeing, a new section on our website and app.

Comparable nations such as the US, UK, Canada, China, Singapore and several European countries have invested heavily in genomic research programs collectively spanning tens of millions of people, and are now incorporating such programs into routine healthcare. Test results can open the way to personalised preventive therapies and treatments, pinpointing the need for some patients to have earlier testing for diseases such as bowel and breast cancer, and to be more proactive in safeguarding against premature heart disease. Adapting the process more widely will involve extra healthcare costs, but it should save on treatments for late-stage serious illnesses and, more importantly, on patient suffering.

It will also involve choices for patients, as Krystal Barter tells Robinson. As many as 20 women in Ms Barter’s family contracted breast or ovarian cancer in the prime of life. After genomic screening in 2005, Ms Barter, a mother of three, opted to have a double mastectomy and an ovary removed after finding she carried the high-risk BRCA1 gene variant and the odds of her developing breast cancer were assessed at 87 per cent.

As the doctors, scientists and advocacy groups argue, unless Australia moves urgently, we risk falling behind other nations: “This is an opportunity for public leadership, to ensure the advances of genomics do not leave behind our most disadvantaged citizens or exacerbate existing health inequities.” The advances stem from the mapping of the human genome more than 20 years ago, with genomic medicine moving so quickly that the cost of some genetic tests has fallen to just $400, ushering in a health revolution to which Australian patients deserve access.