In this piece, my colleague, friend and survivor sister Kathy O’Brien writes in The Star-Ledger about two little-known genetic tests that can help women assess their breast cancer risk.
Kathy and I had discussed one of the tests, the BART test, after I learned that it is not part of the standard BRCA test screening process for someone who doesn’t have a family history of breast cancer.
The BART test typically looks at genetic structures differently than BRCA.
Think of it this way: while BRCA is like a computer spell-checker program that looks for the equivalent of misplaced letters in the genetic code, BART is more like an editor who examines whether or not whole chapters are missing from the book.
Breast Cancer At 30 