Genetics of gastro-intestinal disorders.

作者：Richard B. McConnell · 发表于：PubMed · 年份：1971 · 被引用次数：39 · 研究领域：Digestive system and related health

This book will be welcomed by physicians interested in gastrointestinal functions and diseases and by geneticists working in clinical areas. The author points out that the gastrointestinal tract differs from other systems of the body in that there are very few gastrointestinal disorders whose pattern of heredity is obviously due to single genes of good penetrance and regular expression. More frequently, the inheritance appears to be polygenic. In these circumstances, the best one can do is to marshall all of the available evidence for the involvement of genetic factors in the etiology and to analyze it critically. This the author has done admirably. However, this book is very much more than just an enumeration of the many family and twin studies on diseases of the digestive tract. In considering the various diseases on which genetic studies have been done, the author does not limit himself merely to listing the evidence for or against any genetic pattern; he uses the genetic information to shed more light on the pathogenesis of these diseases. Thus he deals with the relationship between re¬ gional enteritis and ulcerative co¬ litis: his evaluation of the genetic studies that have been done on both diseases lead him to believe that these two diseases occur together too frequently in the same families to be due to chance. He concludes that liability to the two diseases is probably determined by two poly¬ genic systems that may have a number of genes in common. The first chapter...