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The heritability of breast cancer: a Bayesian correlated frailty model applied to Swedish twins data.

Publication ,  Journal Article
Locatelli, I; Lichtenstein, P; Yashin, AI
Published in: Twin research : the official journal of the International Society for Twin Studies
April 2004

The aim of this study was to investigate the role of genes and environment in susceptibility to breast cancer and to give an estimate of heritability in the propensity to develop the disease. To do this we applied an interdisciplinary approach, merging models developed in the field of demography and survival analysis - so-called frailty models - and models coming from quantitative genetics and epidemiology, namely genetic models. In our study, the inferential problem was solved in a Bayesian framework and the numerical work was carried out using MCMC methods. We used the special information coming from twin data, particularly breast cancer data, from the Swedish Twin Register. The application of a correlated log-normal frailty model leads to a very large estimate of the population heterogeneity (sigma = 6.7), and relatively small correlations between co-twins' frailties - around 0.3 for monozygotic and 0.1 for dizygotic twins. Comparing three different genetic models (an ACE, an AE and an ADE model), we furthermore concluded that genetic effects would explain globally almost 30% of the total variability of propensity to breast cancer. Environmental effects would be predominant in determining breast cancer susceptibility and these effects would be primarily individual-specific, that is, non-shared effects. Finally, a model which includes dominance genetic effects (ADE model) is preferred for genetic and statistical reasons.

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Published In

Twin research : the official journal of the International Society for Twin Studies

DOI

ISSN

1369-0523

Publication Date

April 2004

Volume

7

Issue

2

Start / End Page

182 / 191

Related Subject Headings

  • Sweden
  • Survival Analysis
  • Registries
  • Models, Genetic
  • Models, Biological
  • Humans
  • Genetics & Heredity
  • Genetic Predisposition to Disease
  • Female
  • Environment
 

Citation

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Locatelli, I., Lichtenstein, P., & Yashin, A. I. (2004). The heritability of breast cancer: a Bayesian correlated frailty model applied to Swedish twins data. Twin Research : The Official Journal of the International Society for Twin Studies, 7(2), 182–191. https://doi.org/10.1375/136905204323016168
Locatelli, Isabella, Paul Lichtenstein, and Anatoli I. Yashin. “The heritability of breast cancer: a Bayesian correlated frailty model applied to Swedish twins data.Twin Research : The Official Journal of the International Society for Twin Studies 7, no. 2 (April 2004): 182–91. https://doi.org/10.1375/136905204323016168.
Locatelli I, Lichtenstein P, Yashin AI. The heritability of breast cancer: a Bayesian correlated frailty model applied to Swedish twins data. Twin research : the official journal of the International Society for Twin Studies. 2004 Apr;7(2):182–91.
Locatelli, Isabella, et al. “The heritability of breast cancer: a Bayesian correlated frailty model applied to Swedish twins data.Twin Research : The Official Journal of the International Society for Twin Studies, vol. 7, no. 2, Apr. 2004, pp. 182–91. Epmc, doi:10.1375/136905204323016168.
Locatelli I, Lichtenstein P, Yashin AI. The heritability of breast cancer: a Bayesian correlated frailty model applied to Swedish twins data. Twin research : the official journal of the International Society for Twin Studies. 2004 Apr;7(2):182–191.

Published In

Twin research : the official journal of the International Society for Twin Studies

DOI

ISSN

1369-0523

Publication Date

April 2004

Volume

7

Issue

2

Start / End Page

182 / 191

Related Subject Headings

  • Sweden
  • Survival Analysis
  • Registries
  • Models, Genetic
  • Models, Biological
  • Humans
  • Genetics & Heredity
  • Genetic Predisposition to Disease
  • Female
  • Environment