What is a polygenic risk score (PRS)?
A polygenic risk score (PRS) is like a scorecard that adds up all of these small changes to help estimate your overall risk.
Polygenic risk looks for over a million changes in your DNA. Each change that you have adds a little to your chance of getting a health condition. A polygenic risk score (PRS) is like a scorecard that adds up all of these small changes to help estimate your overall risk. The higher the score, the higher your chance of getting that condition. Because this score is based on many genetic changes, it’s called polygenic—“poly” means many, and “genic” means related to genes.
When your polygenic score is combined with other health information, like your sex or family history, it’s called an integrated polygenic risk score (iPRS). This gives a more complete picture of your risk.