Zygosity Diagnosis: When Physicians and DNA Disagree.

Physicians and other medical professionals do not always provide new parents with an accurate diagnosis of their twins' zygosity. An overview of this problem is presented, supplemented by an interview with a mother who recently learned that her 2-year-old 'dizygotic (DZ)' twin girls are actually 'monozygotic (MZ)'. Reviews of two case studies, one of twins with sex-discordance and chimerism and the other of twins with congenital amegakaryotic thrombocytopenia, follow. Two additional studies, one a twin analysis of attractiveness to mosquitoes and the other a study of twins coping with crisis, are also described. Several articles and letters from the popular media, concerning less favored twins, paternity issues surrounding superfecundation, twins with late-onset Tay-Sachs disease, and triplets admitted to MIT are informative and insightful.