Original articlesPhysician assessment of family cancer history and referral for genetic evaluation in colorectal cancer patients
Section snippets
Materials and methods
All patients with a diagnosis of CRC whose first visit to a multidisciplinary gastrointestinal cancer clinic was between June 2001 and May 2002 received a standardized family history questionnaire before their visit. The 2-page family history questionnaire elicited information about the type of cancers diagnosed in relatives and the age at cancer diagnoses. The questionnaire specifically asked patients to indicate the number of siblings and children they had. Family history of colorectal,
Results
A family history questionnaire was completed by 98% (387 of 395) of patients seen for their first oncology visit at the gastrointestinal cancer clinic between June 2001 and May 2002. We retrospectively reviewed the records of 387 consecutive CRC patients who had completed the questionnaire for demographic and family history information. Patient characteristics are provided in Table 1. Patients were seen by 1 of 9 staff oncologists with a median age of 41 years (range, 37–59 yr). The average
Discussion
The results of our study show that although family history of cancer is frequently obtained during medical evaluations, its accuracy is often limited. When compared with patient self-reported information provided by CRC patients on a written questionnaire, nearly one third of cancers in first-degree relatives were not documented by physicians in patients’ medical records. Of interest, the accuracy of cancer history decreased with an increase in the number of cancer diagnoses in the family. From
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Supported in part by a National Institutes of Health grant K07CA08453 for studying identification and cancer screening in hereditary colon cancer families (to S.S.).