Software

PediDraw: A web-based tool for drawing a pedigree in genetic counseling

Min He^1,2 and Wei Li¹

¹Key Laboratory of Molecular and Developmental Biology, Institute of Genetics and Developmental Biology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Datun Road, Chaoyang District, Beijing 100101, China

²Graduate School of Chinese Academy of Sciences, 19 Yuquan Road, Beijing 100039, China

author email corresponding author email

BMC Medical Genetics 2007, 8:31doi:10.1186/1471-2350-8-31

Published:	8 June 2007

Abstract

Background

Drawing a pedigree is a prerequisite in genetic counseling. In medical records, a pedigree is useful to document the family history of the patient. Drawing a pedigree is also necessary in collecting genetic resources for medical research such as positional cloning. Currently, most pedigrees are drawn by hand or by drawing software. Due to the special requirements in a standardized pedigree, generating a pedigree by these methods is usually time-consuming and requires professionals. This limits the usage of a pedigree as demanded in remote diagnosis or online counseling from the counselees to send an electronic pedigree.

Results

We developed an online pedigree drawing tool, PediDraw, which enables users to generate pedigrees after inputting the family information step-by-step on web. It outputs a pedigree or table to present a family history to the counselors.

Conclusion

PediDraw is a user-friendly web-based drawing tool. It is accessible via Internet.