Family History Gets a Boost

Alfred O. Berg, MD, MPH

+ Author Affiliations

From University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98105.

Count me a skeptic when it comes to genetic technologies in primary care practice—and my skepticism is not ill-informed. I was the founding chair of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Evaluation of Genomic Applications in Practice and Prevention (EGAPP) Working Group and chaired the National Institutes of Health State-of-the-Science Conference on family history (1). The EGAPP group has yet to identify a genomic test that is ready for general use in primary care clinical practice, and the National Institutes of Health conference found the evidence base supporting systematic collection of extensive family history to be very thin indeed. In consequence, I have given many presentations in various settings urging primary care clinicians to be cautious when acting on claims that genetic tests or extensive family histories improve the outcomes of care.

How nice to be shown that I might be wrong on both counts by a single study. In this issue, Qureshi and colleagues (2) report on the value of adding systematic collection of family …