FREQUENCY OF CORONARY HEART DISEASE AND CEREBROVASCULAR ACCIDENTS IN PARENTS AND SONS OF CORONARY HEART DISEASE INDEX CASES AND CONTROLS1

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
Phillips. R. L. (School of Health. Loma Linda U., Loma Linda. Calif. 92354). A. M. Lilienfeld, E. L. Diamond and A. Kagan. Frequency of coronary heart disease and cerebrovascular accidents in parents and sons of coronary heart disease index cases and controls. Am J Epidemiol 100:87–100, 1974.—A case-control study was designed to determine whether coronary heart disease (CHD) aggregates among brothers and parent-son groups using data obtained directly from the relatives of cases and controls. Brothers and parents of 54% of all Japanese men living in the Honolulu area and born during 1900–1919 were identified during physical examination at the Honolulu Heart Study. One brother born during 1900–1919 either examined at the Honolulu Heart Study or having died in the USA was randomly selected from each of 5981 sibships and designated as the index person. Among the brothers and parents of all index persons with definite CHD (264) and index persons free of CHD (264) matched by age, birth order and sibship size, the risk of CHD detected by examination, questionnaire or death certificate was determined by life table methods. The relative risk for CHD death was 11.3 for fathers of CHD cases with early onset CHD. The relative risk for developing CHD was 2.5 for male sibs of early onset CHD cases. Fathers and male sibs of late onset CHD cases and mothers of either early or late onset CHD cases show no significant excess risk of CHD compared to controls. Fathers of late onset CHD cases and mothers of early onset CHD cases have a small increase in cardiovascular accident deaths over control parents. Various hypotheses are discussed to explain the observed pattern of aggregation. It is concluded that CHD aggregates in father-son pairs in which the son has early onset CHD. Aggregation is less clear among male sibs and is absent among mother-son pairs.

This publication has 0 references indexed in Scilit: