Mary Bird Perkins Cancer Center’s C.A.R.E. Network is working to expand cancer screening, prevention and control efforts in Hammond and Covington by co-hosting Genetic Cancer Risk Assessment and Counseling clinics. To do so, the Network has partnered with North Oaks Medical Center in Hammond and St. Tammany Parish Hospital and Hematology & Oncology Specialists Foundation in Covington. This innovative service provides confidential genetic counseling and screening services – at no cost – to individuals at risk for hereditary cancers such as breast, ovarian, colorectal and endometrial.
The clinics:
Although most cancers are not inherited, some families may have gene defects that increase their risk not only for the cancers listed above, but numerous others as well. In addition, men and women who carry one of these gene defects have a one in two (50/50) chance of passing it on to their children.
Genetics counseling is available in Covington on the second Friday of every month and in Hammond on the fourth Friday of every month.