Recurrence Risk

Synonyms

Fix heritability recurrence risk

Definition

The term recurrence risk refers to the estimate of the probability that a relative (especially a child) will be affected by the same disorder as an affected individual.

It describes the probability that a disease present in one family member will occur again in other family members in the same or following generations is known as recurrence risk. In general, for fixed heritability, the recurrence risk is approximately a linear function of prevalence when plotted on a logarithmic scale. In practice, it is necessary to offer some estimation of recurrence risk for counseling purposes even in the absence of any defined mechanism of inheritance.