RESUMO
The Danish Twin Registry (DTR) was established in the 1950s, when twins born from 1870 to 1910 were ascertained, and has since been extended to include twins from birth cohorts until 2009. The DTR currently comprises of more than 175,000 twins from the 140 birth cohorts. This makes the DTR the oldest nationwide twin register and among the largest in the world. The combination of data from several surveys, including biological samples and repeated measurements on the same individuals, and data from Danish national registers provides a unique resource for a wide range of twin studies. This article provides an updated overview of the data in the DTR: First, we provide a summary of the establishment of the register, the different ascertainment methods and the twins included; then follows an overview of major surveys conducted in the DTR since 1994 and a description of the DTR biobank, including a description of the molecular data created so far; finally, a short description is given of the linkage to Danish national registers at Statistics Denmark and some recent examples of studies using the various data resources in the DTR are highlighted.
Assuntos
Envelhecimento/genética , Doenças em Gêmeos/epidemiologia , Sistema de Registros/estatística & dados numéricos , Gêmeos Dizigóticos/estatística & dados numéricos , Gêmeos Monozigóticos/estatística & dados numéricos , Pesquisa Biomédica , Criança , Dinamarca/epidemiologia , Doenças em Gêmeos/genética , Doenças em Gêmeos/patologia , Humanos , Incidência , Estudos Longitudinais , Gêmeos Dizigóticos/genética , Gêmeos Monozigóticos/genéticaRESUMO
Over the last 60 years, the resources and the research in the Danish Twin Registry (DTR) have periodically been summarized. Here, we give a short overview of the DTR and a more comprehensive description of new developments in the twenty-first century. First, we outline our experience over the last decade of combining questionnaire and survey data with national demographic, social, and health registers in Statistics Denmark. Second, we describe our most recent data collection effort, which was conducted during the period 2008-2011 and included both in-person assessments of 14,000+ twins born 1931-1969 and sampling of biological material, hereby expanding and consolidating the DTR biobank. Third, two examples of intensively studied twin cohorts are given. The new developments in the DTR in the last decade have facilitated the ongoing research and laid the groundwork for new research directions.