Bojana Pencheva is a genetic counselor with a local children's hospital in Atlanta, and she sat down with Chris and Christy to talk about a fairly recent development in the world of childhood cancer: cancer predisposition programs. Bojana explains what genetic counseling is and how it can help certain patients and their families to help them reduce their increased cancer risk. She goes on to explain what is involved with the screening and the reduction risk plan that may follow, and encourages parents to advocate for this testing for their children and family if there is a family history of childhood cancers. Bojana also talks about the empowering nature of genetic counseling, giving children and teens a sense of control over their own health, especially as they transition to adulthood. She also speaks with positivity about the future of these programs in both creating registries to better help patients and to help doctors learn more about these cancer predisposition syndromes.
