Catherin Watson, MD, Discusses Designing a Trial on Genetic Testing Education in Ovarian Cancer

CancerNetwork^® spoke with Catherine Watson, MD, an assistant professor of gynecologic oncology at the Vanderbilt University Medical Center, at The Society of Gynecologic Oncology (SGO) 2022 Annual Meeting on Women’s Cancer about a trial (NCT04537702) that was designed to compare traditional vs streamlined education to inform patients with ovarian cancer about genetic testing.

Transcript:

The 2 arms [included in the analysis were] the traditional arm, being what we’ve done for many years which is referring a patient to a genetic counselor for a formal pretest consultation. That pretest consultation can be 3 to 4 weeks after the initial appointment, it takes a long time and there is a lot of information that shared. The point of that established pattern was to make sure that patients receive the education they needed and to hopefully mitigate patient distress around the process. Our theory was that in a setting of recommendation for universal testing in a [patient being treatment in a cancer program], that may not be necessary and it may actually be an impediment to getting people tested. The streamlined arm allowed for patients to receive education through a brief 7-minute video that covered the main highlights that would be covered in a longer session with a counselor, and then they had the option for immediate testing.

See Watson detail the results of the trial

Catherine Watson, MD, Details Results of Prospective Trial on Patient Education in Ovarian Cancer

Reference

Watson C. Prospective, randomized trial of streamlined genetic education and testing for patients with high grade epithelial ovarian, fallopian and peritoneal cancer. Presented at: The Society of Gynecologic Oncology (SGO) 2022 Annual Meeting on Women’s Cancer; March 18-21, 2022; Phoenix, AZ.