We identified both medical and psychosocial concerns prevalent among adolescents with craniofacial microsomia. Although adolescents with craniofacial microsomia exhibit considerable resilience, the challenges they face impact their sense of self and should be addressed through psychosocial support and counseling. Further research should investigate the potential benefit of the wider use of hearing aids, as well as the involvement of patients in decision-making about reconstructive ear surgery.
Background:
Variable penetrance and late-onset phenotypes are key challenges for classifying causal as well as incidental findings in inherited cardiac conditions. Allele frequencies of variants in ancestry-specific populations, along with clinical variant analysis and interpretation, are critical to determine their true significance.
Methods:
Here, we carefully reviewed and classified variants in genes associated with inherited cardiac conditions based on a population whole-genome sequencing cohort of 4810 Singaporeans representing Southeast Asian ancestries.
Results:
Eighty-nine (1.85%) individuals carried either pathogenic or likely pathogenic variants across 25 genes. 51.7% had variants in causal genes for familial hyperlipidemia, but there were also recurrent variants in
SCN5A
and
MYBPC3
, causal genes for inherited arrhythmia and cardiomyopathy, which, despite previous reports, we determined to lack criteria for pathogenicity.
Conclusions:
Our findings highlight the incidence of disease-related variants in inherited cardiac conditions and emphasize the value of large-scale sequencing in specific ancestries. Follow-up detailed phenotyping and analysis of pedigrees are crucial because assigning pathogenicity will significantly affect clinical management for individuals and their family members.
This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Rapid genomic testing is increasingly used in inpatient settings for diagnostic and treatment purposes. With the expansion of genetic testing in this setting, requests for inpatient genetics consultations have increased. There have been reports of genetic counselors working in inpatient care, though their specific roles are not well described. In this study, we characterized the roles of genetic counselors practicing in inpatient care settings in the United States and Canada. Genetic counselors were recruited via professional organization listservs to complete an online survey. The survey gathered information on participants' roles and workflow of inpatient genetics consultation services at their institution. Responses from 132 participants demonstrate that 50.4% of genetic counselors cover genetics consultations as needed or on a rotating schedule (34.6%). They practice in general pediatric (59.1%), neonatal (42.5%), cancer (28.3%), and/or prenatal (18.9%) specialties, among others. Participants reported working independently (16.1%) or with other providers (54.8%), including geneticists and other attending physicians. The workflow of genetics consultation services varies between institutions in the delivery of consults, members of the inpatient genetics consultation care team, and administrative support. Fifty percent of participants reported having no exposure to inpatients during graduate training, and 87.3% of participants reported receiving no institutional training for their inpatient role. This is the first study to describe roles of genetic counselors in inpatient care. It establishes a foundation for future research on inpatient genetic counseling and genetic counseling outcomes in inpatient services. As demand for genetics expertise in inpatient care grows, genetic counselors can be hired to serve inpatient populations alongside genetics and non‐genetics providers.
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