BACKGROUND A primary characteristic of complex genetic diseases is that affected individuals tend to cluster in families (that is, familial aggregation). Aggregation of the same autoimmune condition, also referred to as familial autoimmune disease, has been extensively evaluated. However, aggregation of diverse autoimmune diseases, also known as familial autoimmunity, has been overlooked. There...

Studies documenting increased risk of developing autoimmune diseases (ADs) have shown that these conditions share several immunogenetic mechanisms (i.e., the autoimmune tautology). This report explored familial aggregation and segregation of AD, polyautoimmunity, and multiple autoimmune syndrome (MAS) in 210 families. Familial aggregation was examined for first-degree relatives. Segregation ana...

OBJECTIVE To investigate the role of known multiple sclerosis (MS)-associated genetic variants in MS familial aggregation, clinical expression, and accuracy of disease prediction in sporadic and familial cases. METHODS A total of 1,443 consecutive patients were screened for MS and familial autoimmune history in a hospital-based Italian cohort. Among them, 461 sporadic and 93 familial probands...

It is generally assumed that familial aggregation of lipids relates to both genetic and shared environmental factors. To determine the degree to which familial similarities in lifestyle habits explain familial aggregation of high density lipoprotein (HDL) and low density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol, the authors analyzed 1994-1996 data from 2,284 US adult participants in the National Heart, Lu...

Stroke is the second leading cause of death worldwide, and the leading cause of acquired disability in adults in most regions. Fifteen million people worldwide suffer a stroke each year with devastating effects; one third of these individuals die and another one third remains permanently disabled. However, there is a considerable additional unreported asymptomatic cerebrovascular disease. Accor...

Genetic and environmental factors may play a role in the etiopathology of fibromyalgia syndrome (FMS) and other related syndromes. There is a high aggregation of FMS in families of FMS patients. The mode of inheritance is unknown but it is most probably polygenic. There is evidence that polymorphisms of genes in the serotoninergic, dopaminergic and catecholaminergic systems play a role in the e...

Likelihood calculation for pedigrees is complicated and often time-consuming. Testing correlation structures due to familial aggregation is therefore a preliminary procedure. A score statistic is given to check correlations between relatives of randomly chosen pedigrees. This statistic can be used for quantitative and dichotomous data. For both data types, the distribution of the statistic unde...

We examined familial aggregation and risk of age-related macular degeneration in the Utah population using a population-based case-control study. Over one million unique patient records were searched within the University of Utah Health Sciences Center and the Utah Population Database (UPDB), identifying 4764 patients with AMD. Specialized kinship analysis software was used to test for familial...

AIM To polymerase P region (YMDD) mutations of hepatitis B virus gene (HBV DNA) in patients with chronic hepatitis B (CHB) untreated with antiviral medicines and to explore its correlation with pre-c-zone mutations, HBV genotypes and HBV DNA level, and to observe its curative effect. METHODS A total of 104 cases (38 cases in group of familial aggregation and 66 cases in group of non-familial ...