Norway Brings DNA Sequencing To National Healthcare

ananyo writes "Norway is set to become the first country to incorporate genome sequencing into its national health-care system. The Scandinavian nation, which has a population of 4.8 million, will use 'next-generation' DNA sequencers to trawl for mutations in tumors that might reveal which cancer treatments would be most effective. In its three-year pilot phase, the Norwegian Cancer Genomics Consortium will sequence the tumor genomes of 1,000 patients in the hope of influencing their treatments. It will also look at another 3,000 previously obtained tumor biopsies to get a better idea of the mutations in different cancers, and how they influence a patient's response to a drug. In a second phase, the project will build the laboratory, clinical and computing infrastructure needed to bring such care to the 25,000 Norwegians who are diagnosed with cancer each year. Similar projects are under way in the United Kingdom and at research hospitals in the United States, France and elsewhere. But Norway's will be among the first to look for tumor mutations using next-generation DNA sequencing rather than conventional genetic testing."

Comments

Re:Socialized Medicine

[operagost]

First of all, you have a funny idea of "freedom". You might think that it's government's job to redistribute wealth to ensure that everyone has health care-- fine. But you have to face the fact that that is not freedom, it's social justice. As if that wasn't enough, you claim that any attempts to socialize medicine get voted down even though the Affordable Health Care act was recently put into law and GWB added prescription drug benefits to Medicare less than 10 years ago. I'm not making any political statements-- you're simply WRONG and those who modded you up are idiots. In fact, I'm going to metamod as soon as I finish this in the hope that I see your post there.