Women & Infants to host cancer symposium

As more women submit to genetic testing to see if they’re predisposed to breast or ovarian cancer, Women & Infants Hospital is hosting a day-long symposium to help doctors, nurses and other professionals as well as patients understand how to deal with a positive result.
The event, “Hereditary Breast and Ovarian Cancer: BRCA Testing and Beyond,” will be held on Saturday, Sept. 26, from 8 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. in the Women & Infants Conference Center, 101 Dudley St., Providence. It is sponsored by the hospital’s Cancer Risk Assessment and Prevention Program.
The symposium is designed to bring together patients and health care providers in the same audience. It will cover such topics as how to interpret the results of tests for the BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutations; how to manage breast cancer risk; and sexual issues and reproductive options, including pre-implantation genetic diagnosis.
The luncheon lecture will be “A Future Physician’s BRCA+ Story,” with Shanna Levine, a medical student. The afternoon will include a panel discussion of a BRCA-positive patient story and several break-out discussions.
“It is important that we help educate members of the community and the providers who will work with them in the aftermath of a BRCA diagnosis,” said Dr. Robert D. Legare, medical director of the Breast Health Center and Cancer Risk Assessment and Prevention Program and associate professor of obstetrics, gynecology and medicine at The Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University. “This is a powerful and emotional diagnosis.”
Registrations are being accepted now. Fees range from $10 for the general public to $135 for physicians and include continental breakfast, lunch, breaks and syllabus. The symposium has been approved for continuing medical education credits and contact hours for genetic counselors and nurses; social workers may also be able to get credits.
To register, go to www.womenandinfants.org or contact Jessica Perry at (401) 272-1122, ext. 7263.