A practitioner’s approach to germline testing for patients with ovarian cancer depended on each person’s workflow, a new study found. This variation in approach results in “persistent barriers to testing,” according to Gabriella Ficerai-Garland, of the University of Pittsburgh, and colleagues, who presented the data as an abstract at the 2025 ASCO Annual Meeting.
About one-fifth of ovarian cancers are caused by a hereditary predisposition such as BRCA1/2 mutations. Although all patients diagnosed with epithelial ovarian cancer should receive germline genetic testing, less than half of patients diagnosed in the US do.
With this study, Ficerai-Garland and colleagues wanted to identify action areas to improve these testing rates. They conducted semi-structured individual and small group interviews with members of the Gynecologic Oncology and Cancer Genetics offices.