Abstract
Many human diseases show anticipation; that is, disease occurs earlier (or with greater severity) in successive generations. In a computer simulation, we assessed the degree of anticipation that one would expect to see in two-generation breast cancer families. Under reasonable assumed distributions for age at cancer onset, number of children, and mortality, we find a consistent earlier mean age at diagnosis in daughters than in mothers, but the same mean age at diagnosis in affected aunts and nieces. We compare these results with published pedigree data for familial breast cancer that show substantial anticipation in affected daughters compared to their mothers. We find that at least some anticipation is expected in human disease families even when the disease is stable and families are ascertained without obvious sampling bias. We further demonstrate that such anticipation is reduced when comparing affected children to the parents' affected siblings. Copyright (C) 2000 S. Karger AG, Basel.
Original language | English (US) |
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Pages (from-to) | 23-26 |
Number of pages | 4 |
Journal | Human Heredity |
Volume | 51 |
Issue number | 1-2 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - 2001 |
Keywords
- Anticipation
- Ascertainment
- Breast cancer
- Computer simulation
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Genetics
- Genetics(clinical)