Using familial risks to investigate homogeneity of complex diseases : an example from Multiple Sclerosis /
Multiple sclerosis is a complex, inflammatory disease of the central nervous system. One of the characteristics of multiple sclerosis is oligoclonal bands in the cerebrospinal fluid, which is present in about 90% of patients. There is evidence that the genetic associations to the patient group with...
| Main Authors: | , , |
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| Format: | eBook |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
London :
SAGE Publications Ltd,
2020.
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| Series: | SAGE Research Methods Cases: Medicine and Health.
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | Connect to the full text of this electronic book |
| Summary: | Multiple sclerosis is a complex, inflammatory disease of the central nervous system. One of the characteristics of multiple sclerosis is oligoclonal bands in the cerebrospinal fluid, which is present in about 90% of patients. There is evidence that the genetic associations to the patient group with oligoclonal-band-negative status differ from the patient group with oligoclonal-band-positive status. We here sought out to investigate if oligoclonal-band-negative multiple sclerosis is a separate disease from oligoclonal-band-positive multiple sclerosis. We did so by combining nationwide register and calculating the familial risks for multiple sclerosis among the relatives of oligoclonal-band-negative patients. We found that there was a significant risk of multiple sclerosis among the relatives and that it was comparable in size between the relatives to the oligoclonal-band-negative and oligoclonal-band-positive groups. These results provide evidence that oligoclonal-band-negative multiple sclerosis should etiologically be regarded as part of the multiple sclerosis spectra. In this case study, we discuss how we came to that conclusion, what familial risks are, in what context they can be used, and how to interpret the findings from a familial risk study. |
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| Physical Description: | 1 online resource. |
| Bibliography: | Includes bibliographical references and index. |
| ISBN: | 9781529722086 152972208X |