People with cancer and their relatives awaiting germline genome sequencing show high levels of intention to modify their behaviour if a gene variant linked to malignancy is detected, an Australian study shows.

But many of them have an incomplete understanding of  germline genome sequencing (GS), over-estimating the likelihood of obtaining an actionable result, the Australian researchers say.

The study examined a subset of people enrolled in the Genetic Cancer Risk in the Young study (RisC) that recruits patients with a malignancy who are considered likely to have a genetic predisposition for the condition.

All 348 patients had either been diagnosed with cancer before the age of 40; had two cancer diagnoses before the age of 50; or had been given three separate cancer diagnoses to date.