What You Need To Know
Hackensack Meridian Health’s new Hennessy Institute for Cancer Prevention and Applied Molecular Medicine rolls out a new cancer risk assessment.
The John Theurer Cancer Center announced the launch of its cancer risk and early cancer detection program, designed to better identify the risk of cancer in individuals.
The new program is offered at HMH’s Hennessy Institute for Cancer Prevention and Applied Molecular Medicine (HICAP) located at the recently established Cancer Center at Totowa on the St. Joseph’s Health campus in Totowa, NJ. The HMH network is the first in New Jersey to offer this comprehensive, early detection and cancer risk management, joining a few programs in the nation in the broader endeavor of conducting cancer screening at scale, and cancer interception.
It is well established that earlier diagnosis translates into better outcomes. For example, the 5-year survival for stage IA pancreatic cancer is about 85%, but is less than 10% when detected at an advanced stage. Unfortunately, pancreatic cancer is often diagnosed late as are ovarian and lung cancers.
In addition, roughly 10% of all cancers are hereditary with known genetic risk factors. Having a family history of cancer can increase someone’s personal risk of developing the disease. New developments in molecular cancer screening, early cancer detection, and cancer interception approaches include genetic testing, and liquid biopsies.
Individuals will complete a short but comprehensive cancer risk assessment from CancerIQ, an oncology-focused precision health platform. The easy-to-use tool asks people simple questions about their personal and family medical history as well as lifestyle factors. If the assessment flags a patient as having a higher risk of cancer, team members will personally speak with the person about their options and design a personalized plan for early cancer detection and prevention.
Serving New Jersey and the surrounding area, the Hennessy Institute has physicians, nurse practitioners and genetic counselors as well as navigators and researchers working in partnership with the CancerIQ platform.
The free assessment tool is open to the public and can be taken here.