Exome rounds. How will next-generation sequencing technologies impact on patient care in the future? What role will genetic analyses play in routine health care? Sometimes, the possible role of genetic information is compared to the role of MRI imaging, including the general expertise that is required of clinicians who apply these technologies but are not necessarily dedicated experts in the field. Here are three interesting parallels between exomes and MRI – and three examples how the impact of these technologies differs drastically. Continue reading
Tag Archives: MRI
Copy number variations and the forgotten epilepsy phenotypes
Complexity. Structural genomic variants or copy number variations (CNV) are known genetic risk factors for various epilepsy syndromes. In fact, CNVs might represent the single most studied type of genetic alterations across a very broad range of epilepsy syndromes. There is, however, a group of patients that is usually not investigated in genetic studies: patients with presumable lesional epilepsies or questionable findings on Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI). Many of these epilepsies are usually thought to be secondary to the identified lesion, and genetic risk factors are not considered. In a recent study in the European Journal of Human Genetics last week, we investigated the role of CNVs in a cohort of patients with complex epilepsy phenotypes that were not easily classified into existing categories. Many of patients included had definite or questionable findings on MRI. The results of our study made us wonder whether the boundary between lesional and genetic epilepsies needs to redrawn. Continue reading
What would my exome tell about me – a birth announcement
La famiglia. As you might already know, our family expanded two weeks ago with the arrival with our newborn son. Mother and baby are well and happy. As with all other newborns in Germany, our son got a heel stick on his third day of life for newborn screening. When my parents visited the following weekend and the kids were in bed one evening, we eventually ended up talking about screening, genome, disease and the possibility to make predictions from your genetic data. Therefore, looking forwards on life from the perspective of a newborn, what could we learn from exome/genome data and do we want to know it? Continue reading
