title: [Family history: useful or futile?].
abstract: Family history (FH) represents an important tool in clinical practice that allows assessing an increased risk to develop certain diseases as it captures genetic and environmental factors within a family. FH was shown to be important for several conditions such as type 2 diabetes mellitus and cardiovascular diseases as it allows identifying subjects who can potentially benefit from specific diagnostic and therapeutic measures. We also show that FH remains an important tool even in this period of recent progress in molecular genetics and that it is probably underused in the clinical setting.
authors.affiliation: Institut universitaire de médecine sociale et préventive, Rue du Bugnon 7, 1005 Lausanne.
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Bochud
authors.forename: G
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Waeber
authors.forename: P
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Vollenweider
mesh_terms: D005190:Family; D030342:Genetic Diseases, Inborn / Q000235:genetics; D005819:Genetic Markers; D006801:Humans; D008487:Medical History Taking; D012307:Risk Factors
chemical_list: D005819:Genetic Markers