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Whole genome sequencing is unlikely to become a routine part of medicine anytime soon.
In this era of plummeting DNA sequencing costs, we frequently hear the claim that soon everyone should have their whole genome sequenced. However, two implicit assumptions underlie such claims: that whole-genome sequencing (WGS) will be (1) sufficiently cheap and (2) sufficiently useful to drive near-universal uptake. But as is often heard in the personal finance industry, “an elephant for a nickel is only a bargain if you have a nickel and you need an elephant.”
Let’s examine the first half of that proposition: cost. The price tag for WGS has indeed become much smaller, with technological advances dropping the up-front cost to near $1,000. But medical costs are tricky. No matter how inexpensive a medical test, downstream costs can be substantial, such as those generated by inevitable false positives, which require expensive (and potentially harmful) follow-up investigation. In an era of constrained costs, informed practice argues strongly against the indiscriminate application of a test such as WGS, for which we have only begun to gain a...
In this era of plummeting DNA sequencing costs, we frequently hear the claim that soon everyone should have their whole genome sequenced. However, two implicit assumptions underlie such claims: that whole-genome sequencing (WGS) will be (1) sufficiently cheap and (2) sufficiently useful to drive near-universal uptake. But as is often heard in the personal finance industry, “an elephant for a nickel is only a bargain if you have a nickel and you need an elephant.”
Let’s examine the first half of that proposition: cost. The price tag for WGS has indeed become much smaller, with technological advances dropping the up-front cost to near $1,000. But medical costs are tricky. No matter how inexpensive a medical test, downstream costs can be substantial, such as those generated by inevitable false positives, which require expensive (and potentially harmful) follow-up investigation. In an era of constrained costs, informed practice argues strongly against the indiscriminate application of a test such as WGS, for which we have only begun to gain a...