Consanguinity in multifactorial inheritance. Application to data on congenital glaucoma.

The increase of parental consanguinity in multifactorial inheritance is evaluated by calculating the expected incidence of affected children whose parents are first cousins, using several values, namely for condition frequency and heritability of liability. This increase is compared to the expected increase in recessive inheritance, when one or more loci are involved. The method is illustrated by examples of recessive and multifactorial conditions and applied, as a test of discrimination between different modes of inheritance, to data on congenital glaucoma.