A Study on Cases Encountered at the Genetic Counseling Center

Abstract

The case of hereditary disease has increased yearly. According to McKusick, there are about 3, 000 kinds of this disease. About seven percent of new born babies are said to have hereditary disease in one form or another. In the present paper we reported a study on 155 cases we encountered at the Genetic Counseling Center during two years and two months from October, 1977 to December, 1979. Of the matters brought up for consultation, one concerning intermerriage was the most with 24 cases, followed by schizophrenia, manicdepressive psychosis 20 cases, mental deficiency 15 cases, harelip-palatoschisis 14 cases and so on. Consultation about hypophosphatasia, Wiskott-Aldrich syndrome, dyschromatopsia and Down's syndrome from among the cases mentioned above were described concretely. It appears that the latent need for consultation about heredity is considerably high today. © 1980, The Showa University Society. All rights reserved.