Completeness of catalogs of autosomal dominant, autosomal recessive, and X-linked phenotypes

The completeness of McKusick's catalogs of Mendelian Inheritance in Man (MIM) as to the number of phenotypes included was studied by estimating the degree of concordance with the Dutch Gene Catalog of the Department of Medical Genetics of the University of Groningen, The Netherlands. On a total of 355 Mendelian phenotypes described in persons living in The Netherlands or originating from this country, there were nine disease entities which were not present in MIM. As judged from this comparison MIM attains 97.5% completeness (95% CI: 95.3-98.7%). Similar comparisons with data from other countries are needed before a final conclusion can be reached. Corresponding contributors in different countries or linguistic areas might further improve MIM's completeness.