Strategies, care pathways and practices for managing hereditary cancer risk in families of index-case patients who died without undergoing genetic testing: a scoping review protocol

This scoping review aims to map and synthesize the existing evidence on strategies, care pathways, and clinical practices used to manage hereditary cancer risk in families of deceased index cases who did not undergo genetic testing. In such situations, the absence of genetic information from the proband may create clinical, ethical, and organizational challenges for relatives who may be at increased hereditary cancer risk. The scoping review will be conducted according to the Joanna Briggs Institute methodological guidance and reported following the PRISMA-ScR checklist. A comprehensive search will be performed across major biomedical and social science databases and relevant grey literature sources. Both empirical and non-empirical sources describing relevant practices or policies will be included. The expected outcome of this project is a comprehensive mapping of existing strategies and care pathways, identification of knowledge gaps, and synthesis of ethical and clinical justifications for different approaches. The results are intended to inform clinical practice, policy development, and future research on the management of hereditary cancer risk in families of deceased probands. The final scoping review is expected to be completed in 2026.