 Genetic testing is an important component in assessing a patient's risk of developing for me breast cancer but other cancers as well. We usually go about determining if they need genetic testing based on their family history of cancers. We ask them which family members develop cancer, the age of their diagnosis, did they succumb to cancer, has anyone in the family ever had genetic testing? Genetic testing works because it is a means of communicating information and resources about both the health and disease that are attributable to genetic risk. Genetic testing is actually, it's pretty simple, it's a blood draw and we send that off to specialized laboratories that look at genes to see if there's any mistakes or mutations. It's pretty simple, it takes about two to three weeks to get the results back. We go in a bracket to our genes that we all carry and they help us to fight cancer but if they're mutated that's when there's an increased risk to develop a cancer. People who should be tested are based on again their family history or their personal history of cancer. Women under the age of 50 who have breast cancer we refer for testing. Women who are 60 or younger who have the triple receptor negative breast cancers are also referred for testing because they have a higher incidence of BRCA1. Prior history of ovarian cancer, pancreatic cancer or melanoma we also refer. So that's for the people who have cancer themselves. In patients who are coming in because they're considered high risk, they know their family history. We usually refer them for genetic testing if they have family members that develop breast cancer under the age of 50, anyone in the family with ovarian cancer, anyone in the family with male breast cancer or a number of patients in the family with younger age prostate, pancreatic and melanoma cancers. We're very fortunate that we have genetic counselors here and even for us as specialists we refer our patients to the genetic counselors for a thorough review of one's family history and then the genetic counselors will very specifically identify what testing should be performed for those patients. If a patient were to test positive for a BRCA1 or BRCA2 gene mutation it would mean that their breast cancer instead of being a population risk of say 10% would be as high as 87% in their lifetime and the ovarian cancer risk instead of 1 in 70 which is the population risk would go up to about 44% in their lifetime. The genetic testing is covered by insurance when indicated the majority of my patients don't have an issue with their insurance companies covering this test.