[READ] Are you going to have cancer, diabetes or heart disease? Simple test can detect health issues years in advance

Would you like to know your medical future?

In five years most Australians will be able to find out if they will develop cancer, diabetes, heart and other diseases, through a medical breakthrough - genomic testing.

Australians will no longer need to send their blood samples overseas for genomic testing, as the Garvan Institute, one the country's largest medical research institutions, will soon have the analysis available to patients.

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After registering through the National Association of Testing Authorities, within the next 12 months genetic testing will be available to Australians seeking the analysis
'Once in a generation something comes along that completely changes society', Professor John Mattick, executive director at Garvan Institute, told The Daily Telegraph.

'This is the equivalent of the introduction of vaccination in the twentieth century.'

The first Australians to benefit from these tests will be cancer patients, with oncologists now able to send samples for genomic testing within twelve months.

But genome testing has only been made possible after the Garvan Institute received their last ten illumina gene sequencing machines, cutting the cost of genome sequencing down to $US1,000.

These cuts have allowed the institute to be able to financially afford the tests, with genome testing costing them under $AU2,000, Professor Mattick said.

He also believes that if a large amount of people seek out these tests then the price may possible reduce to just several hundred dollars within the next five years.

Now Garvan Institute is submitting a request to get Medicare funding, providing evidence that genome testing may save the health system millions.

Patients with pancreatic cancer have been found hard to treat, who according to Garvan Institute has the same genetic mutations that cause breast and bowel cancer.

This discovery could be life saving - along with the genome testing - with cancer no longer being described by the organ it appears in, but by the genetic mutation that causes it.

Sydney's Prince of Wales hospital has already begun trailing out genome testing, in the hope to find out the cause of intellectual disabilities in children.

Nearly 80 per cent of these problems cannot be not known with the use of traditional diagnostic procedures.

'We’re spending thousands of dollars on unproductive diagnostic odysseys trying to find out what’s wrong and many parents never get an answer,' Professor Mattick said.

With the introduction to genome testing in Australia, genetic and rare problems in children may see a possible treatment after a common problem is mapped out.

But this breakthrough does not go without practical and ethical difficulties.

People may find it hard knowing they have a life threatening problem, especially when it comes to employers and insurers discriminating against them.

But the National Health and Medical Research Council insist that health insurers are not able to refuse insurance to anyone who is predisposed to a fatal condition.

People who chose to have a genome test down, must report it to their health insurance. 

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