SAN ANTONIO – Genetic testing offered the Garcia family a chance at catching cancer in an earlier stage and treating it before the cancer took on an aggressive form for Martin Garcia, Sr. and nearly every person in his family who came after him.
While thyroid cancer is typically one of the less alarming cancers, according to Dr. Santillan-Gomez with Texas Oncology, medullary thyroid cancer is genetic, can become aggressive and more difficult to treat.
The Garcia family knows the genetic mutation that can cause medullary thyroid cancer very well.
“The way I came about my diagnosis was last year, I had a bump on my neck,” Martin Garcia Sr. said. “By the time September came around last year, it was diagnosed that it was aggressive, and I needed surgery.”
Garcia Sr. and Martin Garcia Jr. are both recovering from surgery to remove their thyroid glands less than two weeks ago.
It’s a surgery they faced together and at the same time. They said they wouldn’t have known they needed to go under the knife without genetic testing.
“When I went to go see the oncologist, that’s the first thing they wanted to check — was genetic testing —because it could be a gene in the family,” Garcia Sr. said.
Sara Mokhtary-Myers, a genetic counselor with Texas Oncology, described the process and importance of genetic testing.
Mokhtary-Myers said it’s a simple blood test. Blood is taken to the lab for genetic testing.
“We’re looking for changes or mutations that an individual was born with,” Mokhtary-Myers said. “Having one of these mutations can significantly increase the risk for someone to develop cancer.”
For Garcia Sr., the gene was prevalent. He was instructed to tell his family they should all get tested, as well.
“We have a pretty big family, so every person that tests positive, all their kids will have to be tested,” Garcia Jr. said.
Overall, surgery has been successful for their family, given how early everyone else took their tests after Martin Sr.’s diagnosis. Santillan-Gomez has performed the family’s thyroid surgeries.
“Dr. Santillan has been a blessing with how good he’s been with us,” Garcia Jr. said. “I think he knows our family very well at this point.”
“I always like to ask patients the three Ws,” Mokhtary-Myers said. “We want to know: who has had cancer. That’s the first W. When they had the cancer. So, ‘how old were they when they were diagnosed’ and where that cancer was.”
Mokhtary-Myers also said she wants to debunk the myth that genetic testing is expensive. She told KSAT that many of their patients pay less than $250 for genetic testing.
The Garcia family also said that they were able to get genetic testing done for free within 90 days of another family’s diagnosis through their insurance.
“The evolution of genetic testing now over the last years, it’s more accessible to the patients and to the general population,” Santillan-Gomez said.
The Garcia family said they wanted to share their story to inspire other families to connect and have conversations with each other about their health.
“I know it’s always a scary thing when it comes to cancer, any type,” Garcia Jr. said. “Our genetic testing, yeah, definitely it is a lifesaver … The longer you wait, the longer you don’t talk about your health with your family, there’s more complications.”
More recent local health coverage on KSAT:
Copyright 2025 by KSAT – All rights reserved.