True and pseudohermaphroditism: a decade of experience in Kuwait

Sixty-nine patients with true and pseudohermaphroditism were ascertained by a multispeciality team during the period from January 1979 until December 1988 and were categorized into three groups: [1] true hermaphroditism and mixed gonadal dysgenesis; [2] female pseudohermaphroditism, and [3] male pseudohermaphroditism. This study presents a decade of experience and emphasizes the importance of early diagnosis, particularly in female pseudohermaphroditism

Monozygotic twins concordant for Bardet-Biedl syndrome and benign acanthosis nigricans

Bardet-Biedl syndrome [BBS] is reported in an Arab family with three female siblings, including twins. The twin pair is also concordant for benign acanthosis nigricans, which is considered a helpful marker in zygosity determination. There is significant variation in the BBS features in the twins and their sister

Autosomal recessive duchenne-like muscular dystrophy in arabs, report of a Kuwaiti family and literature review

A Kuwaiti brother and sister [with 4 sibs and 4 half sibs], products of a consanguineous marriage of second-degree cousins, showed a clinical, biochemical, electro-myographic, and histopathological profile of pseudohypertrophic Duchenne muscular dystrophy with normal chromosome constitution. The findings support the concept of severe progressive limb-girdle muscular dystrophy with autosomal recessive inheritance. Preliminary studies of DNA samples by cDNA probes from the Duchenne/Becker locus have ruled out a possible deletion of the X-chromosome. This disease is rare in Britain and North America, but is more common in inbred Arab communities and in people originally from Switzerland

Clustering of major chromosomal abnormalities among unselected sterile men in Kuwait

In Kuwait, 310 unselected sterile men were examined for karyotypes by different banding techniques from January 1980 till December 1988. Eighty-four patients with various major chromosomal abnormalities [MCAs] were detected [27.1%]. Among azoospermic men, 43% were chromosomally abnormal. The ratio of numerical to structural abnormalities was 19:1. In 11 world-wide surveys representing 10,011 subfertile men, the results showed striking variation. The lowest figure of MCAs was from Edinburgh [2.1%], the highest from Norway [9.2%], and the mean was found to be 6.9%. This paper discusses the possible causes of clustering of chromosomally derived sterility among an unselected sterile male population in Kuwait