This term has been used in a variety of clinical and research contexts to indicate unexpected positive findings. Other terms have been used to describe these findings, particularly when they are sought after (rather than being unexpectedly discovered). These terms include “serendipitous and iatrogenic” findings,16 “non-incidental secondary findings”17 “unanticipated findings”,18 and “off-target results”.1 We use “incidental findings” in this paper to indicate the results of a deliberate search for pathogenic or likely pathogenic alterations in genes that are not apparently relevant to a diagnostic indication for which the sequencing test was ordered.
