Doctors uses the family history as the first stop in the assessment of genetic risks for any individual.

For many genetic disorders, there will be no obvious signs of symptoms until significant medical problems surface, so family history may be the only way to identify individuals at risk. This in turn can lead to a program of surveillance and management to mitigate the effects of the condition.

Although the gold standard is a three-generation pedigree, many patients will not have all of the relevant information at their fingertips at the time of a clinic visit, and eliciting a full pedigree can be time-consuming; nevertheless, a set of pointed questions can identify risk for some of the more common conditions for which genetic testing is available.

These include disorders that lead to an increased risk of cancer, sudden death due to cardiac dysfunction, hyperlipidemia, adverse drug reactions, and others. Recognition of…