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Review
. 2018 Jul;38(4):291-295.
doi: 10.3343/alm.2018.38.4.291.

Principles of Genetic Counseling in the Era of Next-Generation Sequencing

Mina Yang  1 , Jong Won Kim  2
Affiliations
Review

Principles of Genetic Counseling in the Era of Next-Generation Sequencing

Mina Yang et al. Ann Lab Med. 2018 Jul.

Abstract

Traditional genetic counseling has focused on the target gene and its natural progress with respect to disease risk. Next-generation sequencing (NGS) can produce information on several genetic variants simultaneously, with different functions and consequences for each. Accordingly, determining the status of the patient or consultant and interpreting sequencing results from many genes can largely increase the complexity of genetic counseling. Moreover, the current environment of big data that can be readily shared via the internet and a ubiquitous network provides many different avenues for which a consultant must handle the traditional principle of genetic counseling in different ways. Thus, further consideration and rethinking of genetic counseling principles are necessary in the era of NGS. In this review, we discuss several aspects of genetic counseling that one can encounter when faced with NGS data.

Keywords: Genetic counseling; Incidental finding; Next-generation sequencing.

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Conflict of interest statement

No potential conflicts of interest relevant to this article were reported.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1. Influence of the issues of NGS technology on traditional genetic counseling.
Abbreviation: NGS, next-generation sequencing.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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