Estimating risks of common complex diseases: familial and population risks

Abstract
An overwhelming proportion of the global literature on familial risks is based on anecdotal information on disease in relatives. There is ample literature illustrating the problem of false reporting of cancers in family members; for some reported cancers less than a half can be confirmed by medical records.5 6 The problem is even worse because the direction of false reporting is often opposite for the cases and the …