General News
18 December, 2021
Genetic testing for heart disease now available for families
CAIRNS Hospital has started a genetic testing clinic for patients with inherited heart conditions to see if they or their family is susceptible to sudden cardiac death or heart failure.
THE hospital has become the only public health facility north of Brisbane to offer the new service.
Direct (child/brother/sister/ parent) relatives of people with inherited heart disease have a 50% chance of inheriting the same genetic heart condition.
Cairns Hospital cardiac electrophysiologist, Dr Kevin Ng, said a person’s genetic history could influence their risk of heart disease in many ways.
“Our genes control every aspect of the body’s cardiovascular system, from the strength of the blood vessels to the way cells in the heart communicate with each other,” Dr Ng said.
He said genetic screening searched for the gene variant that caused certain conditions, such as arrhythmias, congenital heart disease, cardiomyopathy, and high blood cholesterol.
“We can bring the whole family in for testing,” he said.
“If we find or identify anyone at risk of developing these conditions, then hopefully we have caught it really early, so we can prevent serious outcomes such as sudden cardiac death or early heart failure in young people from occurring.”
Clinical nurse co-ordinator of cardiology genomics, Natalia Morris, said that since the new service was introduced in February, dozens of patients had benefited from it.
“Since we started the service, it’s been pretty clear that we have needed to increase the service pretty dramatically to keep up with the demand,” she said.
“We have doubled the number of clinics that we have been offering to keep up with the volumes of families coming through.”
The clinic is available to patients upon referral by a GP or heart specialist.
