PEDIATRICS Vol. 77 No. 6 June 1986, pp. 930-931
This Article
Right arrow Full Text (PDF)
Right arrow P3Rs: Submit a response
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me when P3Rs are posted
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow E-mail this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Similar articles in PubMed
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to My File Cabinet
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrow reprints & permissions
Citing Articles
Right arrow Citing Articles via CrossRef
Right arrow Citing Articles via Google Scholar
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by NORA, J. J.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
PubMed
Right arrow PubMed Citation
Right arrow Articles by NORA, J. J.

Chance and Ventricular Septal Defect

JAMES J. NORA MD, MPH1

1 Departments of Genetics, Pediatrics, Preventive Medicine, and Biometrics, University of Colorado, School of Medicine, Denver, CO 80262

To the Editor.—

Newman1 has restated the multifactorial inheritance hypothesis of the etiology of congenital heart diseases to emphasize the element of chance (which is, of course, inherent in the hypothesis) and proposes what he considers to be a new hypothesis. There is, of course, a very large element of chance in multifactorial inheritance for an individual with a genetic predisposition to ventricular septal defect or other congenital heart defect also to have a genetic predisposition to an environmental teratogen and finally to have these two predispositions triggered during the very short vulnerable period of cardiogenesis (approximately 1 month or less in duration for most lesions).