Genetic Oncology Program

If you or a family member has ever battled cancer, you may wonder if there is an increased chance that your children or future children may be at risk also.

At Cook Children’s Hematology and Oncology Center, we offer a multi disciplinary Genetic Oncology Program that provides comprehensive care and counseling to children and their families with a genetic predisposition to cancer. This program is one of only a few Genetic Oncology Clinics in the U.S. Our approach is a collaboration among pediatric oncologists, geneticists, genetic counselors, social workers, Child Life Specialists, clinical therapists and nutritionists. Through this team of experts, they are able to provide education, guidance, therapy and routine cancer surveillance studies when indicated for children with a predisposition to cancer.

Cancer predisposition syndromes treated

• Ataxia telangiectasia (AT)
• Beckwith-Wiedemann syndrome (BWS)
• Constitutional mismatch repair deficiency 
• Costello syndrome
• DICER 1 syndrome
• Familial adenomatous polyposis (FAP)
• Hemihyperplasia
• Hereditary leiomyomatosis and renal cell cancer syndrome (HLRCC)
• Infantile fibromatosis
• Li-Fraumeni Syndrome
• Lynch syndrome
• Multiple endocrine neoplasia syndromes (MEN)
• Noonan syndrome
• Phosphatase and tensin homolog (PTEN)
• Peutz-Jeghers syndrome
• Rothmund Thomson
• Von Hippel-Lindau Syndrome

Check out more information on Cook Children's Genetic Oncology Program
Read the article New Clinic Identifies Genetic Risks of Cancer for Patients in our Checkup Newsroom

Oncology patients treated

• Tumor type with strong hereditary component (Examples: Solid tumors, sarcomas such as Wilms' tumor, hepatoblastoma (HBL) and pleuropulmonary blastoma (PPB))
• Early-onset tumor (adult-type cancer in a child)
• Concerning family history
• Life after cancer program patients

Services offered

• Family history consultations
• Education on cancer genetics and testing
• Assist families with cancer screenings
• Review cancer history with family to identify relatives with potential risk
• Provide enrollment in ongoing clinical research
• Genetic counseling and support

Meet the team