Molecular screening for diseases frequent in Ashkenazi Jews: lessons learned from more than 100,000 tests performed in a commercial laboratory.

PURPOSE: To determine the frequency of carriers of Ashkenazi Jewish (AJ) genetic diseases in the US population and compare these numbers with previously published frequencies reported in smaller more isolated cohorts.

METHODS: A database containing more than 100,000 genotyping assays was queried. Assays for 10 separate AJ genetic diseases where comparisons were made with published data.

RESULTS: As expected, we observed lower carrier frequencies in a general, US population than those reported in literature. In 2427 patients tested for a panel of 8 AJ diseases, 20 (1:121) were carriers of two diseases and 331 (1:7) were carriers of a single disease. Fifty-three of 7184 (1:306) individuals tested for Gaucher disease had 2 Gaucher Disease mutations indicating a potentially affected phenotype.

CONCLUSIONS: As the number of AJ diseases increases, progressively more individuals will be identified as carriers of at least one disease.