Genetic Misdiagnoses and the Potential for Health Disparities
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Szolovits_Genetic misdiagnoses.pdf
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Author(s)
Funke, Birgit H.
Rehm, Heidi L.
Olesen, Morten S.
Maron, Bradley A.
Loscalzo, Joseph
Manrai, Arjun Kumar
Margulies, David M.
Szolovits, Peter
Kohane, Isaac
Date Issued
August 2016
Journal
New England Journal of Medicine
Publisher
New England Journal of Medicine
Citation
Manrai, Arjun K. et al. “Genetic Misdiagnoses and the Potential for Health Disparities.” New England Journal of Medicine 375, 7 (August 2016): 655–665 © 2016 Massachusetts Medical Society
Version
Final published version
Abstract
Background For more than a decade, risk stratification for hypertrophic cardiomyopathy has been enhanced by targeted genetic testing. Using sequencing results, clinicians routinely assess the risk of hypertrophic cardiomyopathy in a patient’s relatives and diagnose the condition in patients who have ambiguous clinical presentations. However, the benefits of genetic testing come with the risk that variants may be misclassified. Methods Using publicly accessible exome data, we identified variants that have previously been considered causal in hypertrophic cardiomyopathy and that are overrepresented in the general population. We studied these variants in diverse populations and reevaluated their initial ascertainments in the medical literature. We reviewed patient records at a leading genetic-testing laboratory for occurrences of these variants during the near-decade-long history of the laboratory. Results
Multiple patients, all of whom were of African or unspecified ancestry, received positive reports, with variants misclassified as pathogenic on the basis of the understanding at the time of testing. Subsequently, all reported variants were recategorized as benign. The mutations that were most common in the general population were significantly more common among black Americans than among white Americans (P<0.001). Simulations showed that the inclusion of even small numbers of black Americans in control cohorts probably would have prevented these misclassifications. We identified methodologic shortcomings that contributed to these errors in the medical literature. Conclusions
The misclassification of benign variants as pathogenic that we found in our study shows the need for sequencing the genomes of diverse populations, both in asymptomatic controls and the tested patient population. These results expand on current guidelines, which recommend the use of ancestry-matched controls to interpret variants. As additional populations of different ancestry backgrounds are sequenced, we expect variant reclassifications to increase, particularly for ancestry groups that have historically been less well studied. (Funded by the National Institutes of Health.)
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Institute for Medical Engineering & Science
Harvard University--MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology
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DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1056/NEJMsa1507092
