Corneal changes, hyperkeratosis, short stature, brachydactyly, and premature birth: a new autosomal dominant syndrome

Blepharophimosis, corneal vascularization, deafness, and acroosteolysis: a "new" syndrome?

We report on a patient with blepharophimosis who after unsuccessful surgery developed progressive corneal vascularization. The patient had conductive hearing loss, acroosteolysis of the phalanges, arthropathy, loss of subcutaneous fat of the hands, feet and face, and oligospermia. He had had spontaneous pneumothorax four times. We have found no similar case reports in the literature and suggest that this is a new syndrome, which must be differentiated from hereditary mucoepithelial dysplasia, mandibuloacral dysplasia, keratitis-ichthyosis-deafness syndrome, Hajdu-Cheney syndrome, Penttinen syndrome, and mucopolysaccharidoses.

Brachydactyly, a possible inherited anomaly at prehistoric Prince Rupert Harbour

Disproportionately short metacarpals or metatarsals in eight burial skeletons and three unusually short metapodials recovered as disturbed bones were identified in a 1500 B.C. to A.D. 500 skeletal series from eight archeological sites of the north mainland coast of British Columbia, Canada. At least ten people were affected from four sites for a minimum series frequency of 5.2%. Various factors clinically implicated in the occurrence of brachymetapody were investigated to account for the anomaly. Context-sensitive information suggested that trauma, infarction or infection, and individual or family-related malformation syndromes were unlikely possibilities. Some modern population data suggest that the series frequency was unusually high, particularly for fourth metatarsal involvement, the most commonly affected bone. Modern pedigree interpretations, ethnohistoric inferences, and the archeological contexts of the affected burial skeletons and site samples provide a framework for concluding that brachymetapody in the series was more likely due to the inheritance of an essentially isolated anomaly.