Stroke genetics: prospects for personalised medicine

Biomedcentral.com: 9/27/12

Epidemiological evidence supports a genetic predisposition to stroke. Recent advances, primarily using the genome wide association study approach, are transforming what we know about the genetics of multifactorial stroke and are identifying novel stroke genes. Current findings are consistent with different stroke subtypes having different genetic architecture. These discoveries may identify novel pathways involved in stroke pathogenesis, and suggest new treatment approaches. However the already identified genetic variants explain only a small proportion of overall stroke risk and therefore are not currently useful in predicting risk in the individual patient. Read more