Question

Genetic testing is only done if a person has symptoms of a disease.

True

False

Answer 1

Genetic testing is only done if a person has symptoms of a disease.

False, because there is also presymtomatic genetic testing in which, a healthy person is tested for a condition with delayed onset. A positive result indicates that the patient will develop the condition but does not indicate when this will occur. Evaluating a healthy person with a family history of Huntington’s disease is an example of presymptomatic genetic testing.

Genetic testing is also done to check the family history for inheritance of disease, even if the person do not have the symptoms of a disease . For example, cystic fibrosis is linked to one particular gene, but it has to inherit the abnormal version of the gene from both parents to get the disease. If child inherit only one copy, the child would never know—the child won’t display any of the symptoms. But if both parent carry one copy of the faulty gene, then child could still inherit two copies. Genetic tests can forewarn of that possibility.