People whose parents or aunts and uncles have had a brain aneurysm are more likely to have one themselves, indicating that genetic risk factors passed down by generation are responsible.
Prior studies had suggested that aneurysm ruptures affect the offspring or second generation as much as 20 years younger than older generations. This suggests that a genetic risk factor is accumulating with each generation and that aggressive screening should be performed. But a new study shows that may not be the case, and the aneurysms actually may happen at an older age. The study was published in the February 24, 2009, print issue of Neurology ®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.
The study involved 26 clinical centers in the United States, Canada, New Zealand, and Australia. Researchers identified 429 families with at least one case of a ruptured brain aneurysm. A brain aneurysm is a weak or thin spot in a blood vessel that can rupture, causing bleeding into the brain, or hemorrhage.
The researchers then evaluated all siblings in two generations of each family, for a total of 1,641 people. Of the 429 families, 54, or 12.5 percent, had cases of ruptured aneurysms in two generations of the family—either parent and child or aunt/uncle and niece/nephew.