Genetic associations: false or true?
Genetic association studies for multigenetic diseases are like fishing for the truth in a sea of trillions of candidate analyses. Red herrings are unavoidably common, and bias might cause serious misconceptions. However, a sizeable proportion of identified genetic associations are probably true. Meta-analysis, a rigorous, comprehensive, quantitative synthesis of all the available data, might help us to separate the true from the false.
Ioannidis
John P A
JP
Clinical and Molecular Epidemiology Unit, Department of Hygiene and Epidemiology, University of Ioannina School of Medicine and Biomedical Research Institute, Foundation for Research and Technology-Hellas, Ioannina, Greece. jioannid@cc.uoi.gr
D020022:Genetic Predisposition to Disease; D005826:Genetics, Medical; D006801:Humans; D015201:Meta-Analysis as Topic; D011110:Polymorphism, Genetic