title: Syndromology: an updated conceptual overview. I. Syndrome concepts, designations, and population characteristics.
abstract: Part I introduces the survey and presents a topic outline of the 10 parts that make up this overview of syndromology in this and the next four issues. The discussion in Part I considers various concepts and definitions of the term "syndrome" and different ways of applying syndrome designations. A population definition of a syndrome is then developed to show the meaning of common, less common, and occasional anomalies in various syndromes. The differences between a true multiple anomaly syndrome and a variant familial pattern are discussed. Finally, two types of weak recurrent patterns--chance patterns and association patterns--are explained.
authors.affiliation: Department of Oral Biology, Faculty of Dentistry, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada.
authors.forename: M M
authors.initials: MM
authors.lastname: Cohen
mesh_terms: D004194:Disease; D005828:Genetics, Population; D006801:Humans; D010641:Phenotype; D011336:Probability; D013577:Syndrome; D009626:Terminology as Topic