AAOF Forsyth Institute Twin Sample Overview

The Forsyth Institute Twin Sample

Curator: Leslie A. Will, DMD, MSD

Institution: - Forsyth Institute

The Forsyth twin sample is perhaps the largest prospective growth sample collected on twins and their families. The sample was collected as part of a federally funded project carried at the Forsyth Infirmary for Children in Boston, Massachusetts by Dr. Coenraad Moorrees, director of Orthodontics, and his staff. Five hundred and thirty-three families with twins or triplets were recruited from the Boston Twin Association, and the twins and their siblings had records taken annually on or near their birthdays. Parents had records taken once. Records consisted of lateral, wide-open, and posteroanterior headfilms, incisor periapicals during incisor eruption, hand-wrist films, lateral jaw films, study casts, anthropometric measurements, demographic and family surveys, and dietary information.

Approximately 13,000 sets of records are recorded and remain. Two hundred and fifty families have records on twins, at least one sibling, and both parents. Thirty additional families have two or three sets of twins or twins and triplets.

The Twin sample is currently in a storage facility, and one of the needs is to improve the storage conditions so that the records are not exposed to extreme temperatures.