RT Journal
A1 Spencer KL, Glenn K, Brown-Gentry K, Haines JL, Crawford DC
T1 POpulation differences in genetic risk for age-related macular degeneration and implications for genetic testing
JF Archives of Ophthalmology
JO Archives of Ophthalmology
YR 2012
FD January 1
VO 130
IS 1
SP 116
OP 117
DO 10.1001/archopthalmol.2011.1370
UL http://dx.doi.org/10.1001/archopthalmol.2011.1370
AB 
The personal genetics revolution has promised patients an account of their individual risks of common, complex diseases based on their DNA sequence. Although under increased scrutiny from the US Food and Drug Administration, several direct-to-consumer genetic testing companies offer such services, and conflicting results for the same disease in the same individual are commonly reported.1 Even for an unusual case like age-related macular degeneration (AMD) for which a small number of loci with strong effects has consistently been replicated across studies, it is extremely difficult to predict who will or will not develop disease.2 Furthermore, most genetic association studies have been conducted in European American individuals, and because the frequency of genetic polymorphisms varies across race-ethnicities, the predictive value of any genetic algorithm developed in one population may not translate to another. We have seen an extreme example of this for the ARMS2 (GenBank BC066349) AMD susceptibility locus.