Why are some people diagnosed with CTD?

CTD is an inherited genetic disorder with so-called autosomal recessive heredity, which means that you have to have two genes with the genetic disorder (one from each parent) to reveice the illness.

In other countries, this illness is very rare, while it is proportionally more common in the Faroe Islands. It is estimated from current numbers that more than 1 out of 400 Faroese people has the illness CTD.

A part of the reason is that Faroese people live very secluded, and that it therefore often occurs that Faroese parents descent from the same family a few generations back. This also means that Faroese parents more often are carriers of the same CTD gene.

Even though CTD always has been in the Faroe Islands, it was not until in 1995 that doctors confirmed the first patient with the illness. Furthermore, it was not until around ten years ago that the severity of the illness in the Faroe Islands was confirmed.