Re: CMT inheritance rates..

[Guest guest]

Greetings:

I don't think it's possible to conjecture on the inheritance rate of CMT based

on a small number of families.. Probability is like rolling a die... If you

rolled a dice with half the sides CMT and half NO CMT ten times, the AVERAGE may

be that five of the rolls come up positive for CMT but we can't predict the

order of these. Thus, it is possible that five in a row can come up for CMT, or

five in a row without it.

So, a 50% inheritance rate can mean that if you have two kids, BOTH may have

CMT, none may have CMT, or only one. Without having huge numbers of children it

would be hard to test the true probability.

I am one of four children and the ONLY one to inherit CMT (apparently from my

father). I have a sibling whom I think may have it too, but, so her symptoms

are so minor she probably couldn't be diagnosed (only symptom is she can't walk

in heels and has a swaying gait).

It might be interesting as a poll question to ask everyone on who has

children how many of the children inherited it...or to ask everyone who has

inherited it how many of their siblings did too. It seems that with numbers in

the hundreds or thousands it would be possible statistically to see if the

inheritance rate is higher than 50/50.. But doing that based on a handful of

families would not be a large enough sample.

I guess, though, that the point is 50/50 risk can end up meaning passing it on

to all the kids we have, it's a high risk.

Peace, Marti