PREDICTIVE TESTING FOR HUNTINGTONS-DISEASE - A CHALLENGE FOR PERSONS AT RISK AND FOR PROFESSIONALS

About a decade ago the introduction of predictive testing for Huntingt on's disease (HD) was an important milestone in medical history. The a im of the present paper concerning predictive DNA-testing for HD is fo urfold. First of all it describes the professional challenge of elabor ating an adequate test protocol and of permanently using a multidiscip linary approach to deal with predictive test requests. Secondly the pa per is aimed at unraveling the factors that play a part in uptake and decision making regarding predictive testing. Hereby the Health Belief Model is used as a framework for understanding differences between te sted and untested persons. Thirdly the impact of the test result on ps ychological well-being is reviewed, Finally this paper assesses the ut ilisation of prenatal diagnosis after predictive testing for HD and re flects on the psychological and ethical implications of different type s of prenatal tests, including preimplantation genetic diagnosis. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.