[The Townes-Brocks syndrome in Spain: the epidemiological aspects in a consecutive series of cases]. / Síndrome de Townes-Brocks en España: aspectos epidemiológicos en una serie consecutiva de casos.

INTRODUCTION: Townes-Brocks syndrome is constituted by a multi-systemic pattern of congenital anomalies with autosomal dominant inheritance. The most characteristic defects are those affecting hearing and the auricle, anal atresia and thumb anomalies. PATIENTS AND METHODS: We present the epidemiological characteristics of six cases of Townes-Brocks syndrome identified in the consecutive series of 25,967 malformed live born infants detected among 1,431,368 live births surveyed by the ECEMC (Spanish Collaborative Study of Congenital Malformations) between April 1976 and June 1997. RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS: The minimal estimated frequency of Townes-Brocks syndrome in our data is 0.42 cases per 100,000 liveborn infants. These infants have low birth weights. Similar to other published studies, we have observed in our cases a wide variation in the clinical expression of the syndrome, showing great inter-family, as well as intrafamily variability.

[Jarcho-Levin and Casamassima syndromes: differential diagnosis and frequency in Spain]. / Síndromes de Jarcho-Levin y Casamassima: diagnóstico diferencial y frecuencia en España.

OBJECTIVE: Jarcho-Levin syndrome is characterized by the presence of only costal-vertebral defects. However, this diagnosis has been used in any case presenting with costovertebral defects, whether associated to other congenital defects or not. Recently, it has been demonstrated that costovertebral defects constitute a developmental field defect and, because of this, they can be observed in different clinical and etiological patterns. On the other hand, Casamassima syndrome is characterized by the presence of costovertebral defects, genito-urinary anomalies and anal atresia, which make it easily distinguishable from Jarcho-Levin syndrome. PATIENTS AND METHODS: We present the cases with Jarcho-Levin and Casamassima syndromes identified among 1,405,374 liveborn (LB) infants registered by the Spanish Collaborative Study of Congenital Malformations (ECEMC). RESULTS: Frequencies of these two syndromes in the ECEMC are 0.2 per 100,000 LB for Jarcho-Levin syndrome and 0.3 per 100,000 LB for Casamassima syndrome. We present the clinical manifestations and other characteristics of all the cases registered with these syndromes in the ECEMC. CONCLUSIONS: Jarcho-Levin syndrome is defined by the presence of costoveriebral defects without any other congenital defect. However, given that the alterations of the axial skeleton are a developmental field defect, they can be observed in different clinical-etiological patterns that should not be considered as Jarcho-Levin syndrome. Among these, Cassamassima syndrome can be clearly distinguished, being autosomal recessive as is Jarcho-Levin syndrome.

[An epidemiological study of the thrombocytopenia with radial aplasia syndrome (TAR) in Spain]. / Estudio epidemiológico del síndrome de trombocitopenia con aplasia de radio (TAR) en España.

OBJECTIVE: There are numerous published papers on TAR syndrome. Nevertheless, most of them refer to cases or families with several affected members, but we could find no publication epidemiologically analyzing a consecutive series of cases. PATIENTS AND METHODS: We show the characteristics of the six cases with TAR syndrome identified in the consecutive series of 25,967 malformed live born infants detected among 1,431,368 live births surveyed by the ECEMC (Spanish Collaborative Study of Congenital Malformations) since April 1976 until June 1997. RESULTS: The minimal estimated frequency of TAR syndrome in our area is 0.42 per 100,000 live born infants, with a confidence interval of 0.15 to 0.91. There was no known consanguinity among the cases' parents, nor other affected family members. The sex ratio was 1:1. Although it is generally considered that the syndrome is autosomal recessive, genetic heterogeneity cannot be ruled out. CONCLUSIONS: Our cases concur with published data with respect to the low frequency of consanguineous parents. However we did not find a higher proportion of girls affected as has been described previously.