Restricting germline genetic testing to patients diagnosed with cancer before age 50 may miss the large majority of all those with inherited pathogenic variants, a new study suggested.

The research, based on germline sequencing of 39,184 unselected patients with solid tumors, found that the age-50 cutoff would miss 72% of all patients harboring a pathogenic variant. That included 68% of those with moderate-or high-penetrance variants, which confer substantially elevated lifetime cancer risks.

“Hereditary cancer can occur at any age, and we should move toward a new standard in which genetic testing is considered for every patient diagnosed with cancer, regardless of age,” said lead study author Zsofia K. Stadler, MD, of Memorial Sloan Kettering (MSK) Cancer Center in New York City.