Performance characteristics of a brief Family History Questionnaire to screen for Lynch syndrome in women with newly diagnosed endometrial cancer

OBJECTIVE: The brief Family History Questionnaire (bFHQ) was developed to identify endometrial cancer patients whose family histories suggest Lynch syndrome (LS). We compared the bFHQ, extended Family History Questionnaire (eFHQ) and dictated medical records (DMRs) to determine which family history screening strategy is superior in identifying LS in unselected women with newly diagnosed endometrial cancer that have undergone universal germline testing. METHODS: Prospective cohort study recruited women with newly diagnosed endometrial cancer to evaluate screening strategies to identify LS. Participants completed bFHQ and eFHQ, had tumor assessed with immunohistochemistry (IHC) for mismatch repair proteins (MMR) and micro-satellite instability testing and underwent universal germline testing for LS. The sensitivity, specificity, positive and negative predictive values (PPV, NPV) were compared between the family history screening strategies as well as IHC. RESULTS: 118 of 182 eligible patients (65%) consented; 87 patients (74%) were evaluable with both family history and germline mutation status. Median age was 61years (range 26-91). All 7 patients with confirmed LS were correctly identified by bFHQ, compared to 5 and 4 by eFHQ and DMR, respectively. The sensitivity, specificity, PPV and NPV values of bFHQ were 100%, 76.5%, 25.9% and 100%, respectively, performing similar to IHC testing. While eFHQ was more specific than bFHQ (86.7% vs. 76.5%, P=0.007), 2 cases of LS were missed. CONCLUSIONS: The patient-administered bFHQ effectively identified women with confirmed LS and is a good screening tool to triage women with endometrial cancer for further genetic assessment.