Publications by authors named "A S Rusnak"

Article Synopsis
  • - In Canada, hereditary cancer care is inconsistent, leading to patients seeing multiple doctors and needing to advocate for their own treatment plans, highlighting the call for a national registry for carriers of cancer-susceptibility genes.
  • - The Ontario Hereditary Cancer Research Network (OHCRN) is being established to create a centralized registry in Ontario to collect clinical, genomic, and self-reported data from participants, expected to launch in mid-2025.
  • - Ethical approval for the registry has been secured, and the data will be shared in anonymized forms on the OHCRN website and at conferences, aiming to inform health policies and support research in the field.
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Background: The rapid evolution of genetic technologies and utilization of genetic information for clinical decision-making has necessitated increased surgeon participation in genetic counselling, testing, and appropriate referral of patients for genetic services, without formal training in genetics. We performed a scoping review to describe surgeons' knowledge, perceptions, attitudes, and barriers pertaining to genetic literacy in the management of patients who had confirmed cancer or who were potentially genetically at risk.

Methods: We conducted a scoping review in accordance with the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-analyses Extension for Scoping Reviews checklist.

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Purpose: To evaluate the diagnostic utility of publicly funded clinical exome sequencing (ES) for patients with suspected rare genetic diseases.

Methods: We prospectively enrolled 297 probands who met eligibility criteria and received ES across 5 sites in Ontario, Canada, and extracted data from medical records and clinician surveys. Using the Fryback and Thornbury Efficacy Framework, we assessed diagnostic accuracy by examining laboratory interpretation of results and assessed diagnostic thinking by examining the clinical interpretation of results and whether clinical-molecular diagnoses would have been achieved via alternative hypothetical molecular tests.

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Breast tissue density (BTD) is known to increase the risk of breast cancer but is not routinely used in the risk assessment of the population-based High-Risk Ontario Breast Screening Program (HROBSP). This prospective, IRB-approved study assessed the feasibility and impact of incorporating breast tissue density (BTD) into the risk assessment of women referred to HROBSP who were not genetic mutation carriers. All consecutive women aged 40-69 years who met criteria for HROBSP assessment and referred to Genetics from 1 December 2020 to 31 July 2021 had their lifetime risk calculated with and without BTD using Tyrer-Cuzick model version 8 (IBISv8) to gauge overall impact.

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We examined the utility of clinical and research processes in the reanalysis of publicly-funded clinical exome sequencing data in Ontario, Canada. In partnership with eight sites, we recruited 287 families with suspected rare genetic diseases tested between 2014 and 2020. Data from seven laboratories was reanalyzed with the referring clinicians.

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