title: Consortium approach to identifying genes for Barrett's esophagus and esophageal adenocarcinoma.
abstract: Consortium approaches are becoming increasingly more common for a variety of chronic diseases and conditions. The Familial Barrett's Esophagus Consortium began in 1998 and was originally designed to investigate the evidence for familial aggregation of Barrett's esophagus, esophageal adenocarcinoma, or esophagogastric junctional adenocarcinoma. The authors have shown that this phenotype does in fact aggregate in families; therefore, linkage analyses are currently underway. The Consortium, whose goals and membership are growing, has been successfully established and maintained. In this article, details about the research design and membership are provided, as are the current and future goals of the Consortium. The authors believe that this time is especially exciting for research in this area, and they look forward to answering more questions relevant to these diseases with regard to both genetic and environmental risk factors to ultimately design more effective treatment and prevention strategies.
authors.affiliation: Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine, Cleveland, Ohio, USA.
authors.forename: Heather M
authors.initials: HM
authors.lastname: Ochs-Balcom
authors.forename: Gary
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Falk
authors.forename: William M
authors.initials: WM
authors.lastname: Grady
authors.forename: Margaret
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Kinnard
authors.forename: Joseph
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Willis
authors.forename: Robert
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Elston
authors.forename: Charis
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Eng
authors.forename: Amitabh
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Chak
mesh_terms: D000230:Adenocarcinoma / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000235:genetics*; D001471:Barrett Esophagus / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000235:genetics*; D003299:Cooperative Behavior; D004938:Esophageal Neoplasms / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000235:genetics*; D020022:Genetic Predisposition to Disease / Q000453:epidemiology; D006801:Humans; D010375:Pedigree; D012307:Risk Factors; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires