An unusual distal arthrogryposis.

We report on a mother and her dizygotic twin fetuses who were affected with distal arthrogryposis. In addition the mother has cervical vertebral anomalies, scoliosis, short stature, nuchal and axillary pterygia, and unusual facial appearance. The fetuses had a short neck, pterygium colli, retrognathia, and mild apparent scoliosis. We think that these three individuals have a previously undescribed type of distal arthrogryposis.

Acrofacial dysostosis with severe facial clefting and limb reduction.

We describe two unrelated patients with a severe form of acrofacial dysostosis. Facial defects in both include coloboma of the lids, micrognathia, lateral oral clefting, palatal clefting, and severe auricular anomalies, with one showing bilateral cleft lip and right oblique facial clefting as well. Both have absent forearms and thumbs. Lower limbs were severely reduced in both infants with the feet attached either to the femur or directly to the trunk. Parental consanguinity was present in one case. The condition in these two infants appears to represent either a severe form of Nager acrofacial dysostosis or a new type of acrofacial dysostosis.

Terminal and interstitial deletions of the long arm of chromosome 7: a review with five new cases.

Sixteen cases of terminal deletions and 17 cases of interstitial deletions of the long arm of chromosome 7 have been reported to date. We present two new cases of the former and three of the latter. The somatic changes in these patients are tabulated and an update on the anomalies associated with the various cytogenetic entities is presented. Changes found in over one-third of patients with 7q terminal deletion syndrome include: developmental delay, pre- and postnatal growth retardation, generalized hypotonia, abnormal electroencephalograms with or without seizures, feeding problems in infancy, microcephaly, prominent forehead, ocular hypertelorism, eye defects, broad nasal bridge, bulbous nasal tip, auricular malformations, micrognathia, chest abnormalities, genital malformations in males, and abnormal palmar and plantar creases. Evidence for the localization of the Kidd blood group gene on chromosome 7 distal to band q32, as suggested by previous reports, is reviewed; we conclude that the evidence does not warrant placement of the gene in this region of the genome.