Which test is the right test? In clinical practice, determining an appropriate genetic testing strategy in the evaluation of a patient with unexplained epilepsy is often inconsistent and left to the treating provider, given the lack of evidence-based guidelines. Oftentimes external factors, such as insurance hurdles, dictate the genetic testing that can be ordered. A recent meta-analysis in Neurology attempts to answer the question about which genetic test is most cost-effective in patients with epilepsy, which may aid in the decision making when considering a genetic evaluation of a person with epilepsy. Continue reading
Category Archives: Genetic analysis
Genome meets phenome to find novel recessive diseases
N=1. Even though many recessive disorders have been identified through next-generation sequencing, there is a major conceptual problem when it comes to interpreting the results of these studies. Recessive disorders are very rare and it is sometimes difficult to assess whether a given variant is truly disease-causing or simply an innocent bystander. A recent study in Nature Genetics has developed a novel concept to identify recessive disorders that rise above the overall genomic noise, finding four novel recessive disorders. In addition, the authors have enhanced their analysis by a statistical analysis of disease phenotypes.
