MLL: Cancer risk prediction and targeted screening in general practice

29 May 2023

In Australia, bowel cancer screening is offered to everyone in the population from age 50, unless they have a family history. However, more precise screening options are now emerging to determine who is at risk.

Dr Sibel Saya shares how lifestyle and genetic risk factors can inform targeted cancer screening tests, and how this type of personalised cancer screening program could be implemented in general practice to improve early detection.

This presentation will take you through a program of work exploring the translation of risk models, using lifestyle and DNA risk factors, into general practice.

A large randomised controlled trial examined the impact of a lifestyle risk prediction tool, called CRISP, on patients’ risk-appropriate screening behaviour (i.e. did they complete the right screening test for their personal risk). This study showed that those who used the CRISP tool had a 20% increase in screening with Faecal Occult Blood Tests (FOBTs) for those who required screening within a year.

A second program of work will be presented which examines how a polygenic risk score (a DNA risk test that can predict future risk of cancer) can be used to target screening in general practice. The program explored whether this was acceptable to patients and GPs, how patients reacted to their risk information, and how it impacted their screening decisions. This program will later be expanded to look at how a multi-cancer polygenic risk score can be implemented in primary care.

The webinar will also cover how the implementation of cancer risk prediction in general practice can be feasible and can result in increased uptake of risk cancer screening tests for an individual's personal risk.

Presenters

Dr Sibel Saya
Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Centre for Cancer Research
The University of Melbourne

Dr Sibel Saya is a postdoctoral research fellow in the Cancer in Primary Care research group in the Centre for Cancer Research and the Department of General Practice and Primary Care at the University of Melbourne. She completed her PhD on the translation of a polygenic risk score for bowel cancer to target screening in general practice. Her research focuses on the implementation of new genetic and genomic tests in primary care and their clinical utility for the general population.