In the Centre for Medical Genetics, University Hospital Ghent researchers have a new genetic test for heart disease developed. The test allows a fast and efficient way to check a number of genes in patients with aortic dilation, even very often fatal disease that affects about 1 in 800 people. Approximately 20% of these patients, the disorder is highly genetically determined and it is important to the underlying genetic defect is known not only for the patient but also for his family at risk of 50% for the same condition to obtain . An early genetic diagnosis means that this family preventively occurred and that the condition is treatable. The test uses the Next Generation Sequencing Technology (NGS), a technique that the last five years a revolution has caused for example in the study the unraveling of genetic diseases and cancer. Unlike conventional DNA sequencing technology in a few hours of the order of hundreds of millions of base pairs (the building blocks of DNA) identification. The Centre for Medical Genetics for the first time the NGS technology in the diagnosis of hereditary diseases applied. Hereditary forms of aortic dilation that ultimately lead to rupture of the aorta with sudden death 15 years have been intensively studied in the center. Because different genes are responsible for this condition is the detection of the genetic defect cumbersome. Until now, gene by gene sequence investigated and it was six months. This new development, one can explore the different genes simultaneously in one test. Also newly identified genes responsible for aortic dilatation are now simply included in this test. The Centre for Medical Genetics is the first laboratory inEuropethat this new test in conditions accredited to offer.

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