17q12 microduplications: a challenge for clinicians.

In the recent years, some cases of 17q12 deletions and duplications have been reported, but the clinical impact of these imbalances is still to be fully elucidated. In particular, 17q12 duplications elude syndrome classification, since they are associated with a wide phenotypic spectrum, ranging from very mild to quite severe phenotypes. Here, two unrelated patients with the same 1.2 Mb microduplication of 17q12 are reported. Comparing these patients' phenotype with those previously published, it emerges that the more patients reported, the more difficult is finding common characteristics, even in presence of exactly the same genetic anomaly. The role of the genes duplicated in this region and the impact of this chromosomal imbalance are discussed.

[Diencephalic syndrome. Case report and review of literature]. / Sindrome diencefalica. Segnalazione di un caso e revisione della letteratura.

We report the case of a twenty-three month old, normally eating child, affected by organic macies and severe dystrophy. After the negative response of blood and laboratory examinations let us exclude a malabsorption syndrome, only the performance of neuro-radiologic exams showed evidence of a subthalamic tumor as the cause of a "Diencephalic syndrome". Diencephalic syndrome or Russel's syndrome is a diencephalic tumor induced disease, which sets in the first three years of life. The disease clinical markers are a severe emaciation with appetite preservation and absence or very scarce evidence of any telltale neurological sign. the tumoral histo-pathology most frequently shows a low grade of malignancy astrocytoma, whose eradication is very often difficult because of the particular anatomic site. Choice treatment includes an excisional biopsy associated to chemotherapy and to radiotherapy.