Helix/Ohio State Genomics Patient Feature & Video - CORP_25243950

[Music playing]

[Text on screen: Amy Sturm
Executive Director
Ohio State Genomic Health]

Amy Sturm: Ohio State Genomic Health is a community health research project. Every single participant undergoes clinical genetic screening for three really important conditions that give an increased risk for things like breast and ovarian cancer, colon cancer, and a condition that is a hereditary type of high cholesterol that can give people a really high risk for heart attacks and strokes. For research, we are going to be able to use this type of data to help power the future discoveries to learn more about genetics and health, and how we can keep people as healthy as possible to live these long, healthy lives.

[Text on screen: Ohio State Genomic Health Participant]

Speaker 2: I was 38, I'm 52 now. And I felt a lump and went to the doctor and found out, of course, it was stage 1A, and then 14 months later I was stage four, and about three years later, after all of that, I had another one. And then that's when I had my double mastectomy.

[Text on screen: Ilene Fox - Comeras
Clinical Research Specialist
Division of Human Genetics]

Ilene Fox - Comeras: She knew about the breast cancer mutation. She did not know about the Lynch syndrome mutation, so that was a shock to her.

Speaker 2: I didn't expect this result.

Amy Sturm: Lynch syndrome is a hereditary cancer syndrome. It is something that someone typically inherits from either their mother or their father, and so they really have that risk present in them from birth. And so it's really important to identify it as young as possible because Lynch syndrome gives you a high risk for colon cancer, uterine cancer, other cancers. And for example, people with Lynch syndrome are supposed to start colonoscopies as young as age 25, which is really different than what we say to people in the general population for colon cancer screening.

Speaker 2: I honestly just expected it to be the BRCA gene, but I am very thankful that I do know. I had to have a colonoscopy not long ago, and I had a very big polyp. And so that just puts it to perspective. Now that I know I can do so much to prevent it, I can change my diet, I can change my activity levels, there's so many things, I hardly ever drink. So I mean, there's so many different things that I can do. And had I not known, I wouldn't have been going and getting my skin checked, and I never would've willingly went in and got several colonoscopies. So yeah, it's changed everything about how I look at my medical and my future.

Ilene Fox - Comeras: We have high risk breast clinics. We have high risk colon clinics for these patients, and they can be referred for their cholesterol and give not only their physicians, but their families, some guidelines too, on what the screening should be. And at that point, we want to involve the family, let the family know what their increased risk is.

Amy Sturm: Today, anyone age 18 and over who is a current Ohio State Wexner Medical Center patient can participate.

Ilene Fox - Comeras: And again, that personalized preventative health approach, which is why I really like this program, it's personal.

[Text on screen: The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center]

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