Presymptomatic Diagnosis

Jörg Schmidtke, Institute of Human Genetics, Hannover Medical School, Hannover, Germany

Published online: January 2006

DOI: 10.1038/npg.els.0005571

Presymptomatic diagnosis implies the discovery of indications of future disease. In order to allow patients to weigh up the benefits and the risks of the medical, psychological and social implications of possible future disease, presymptomatic diagnosis should be a part of genetic counseling.

Keywords: presymptomatic diagnosis; predictive genetic testing; probabilistic nature of genetic tests; prevention of disease; genetic counseling

 References
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    book Schmidtke J, Nippert I and Wolff G (2001) "Genetic counseling: historical, ethical, and practical aspects". In: Smelser NJ and Baltes PB (eds.) International Encyclopedia of the Social, Behavioral Sciences, vol. IX, pp. 6092–6097. Amsterdam: Elsevier Science

Related Sub-Topics:

Specific Genetic Disorders | Pharmacogenetics and Pharmacogenomics | Techniques and Tools in Clinical Genetics | Genetic Counseling | Health Care
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Article Title: Presymptomatic Diagnosis
 
How to Cite close
Schmidtke, Jörg(Jan 2006) Presymptomatic Diagnosis. In: eLS. John Wiley & Sons Ltd, Chichester. http://www.els.net [doi: 10.1038/npg.els.0005571]