Article Text

Download PDFPDF
Congenital adrenal hyperplasia--a clinical and genetic survey. Are we detecting male salt-losers?
  1. L Murtaza,
  2. J R Sibert,
  3. I Hughes,
  4. I C Balfour

    Abstract

    In a genetic and clinical study in Wales of congenital adrenal hyperplasia due to 21-hydroxylase deficiency, 26 cases were found in the period 1966 to 1977. No one was known to have died from the condition in the period. There were 14 female and 5 male salt-losers, and 5 female and 2 male nonsalt-losers. The discrepancy between the sexes suggests that some cases of congenital adrenal hyperplasia in males are not being detected. This is of concern as salt-losing cases may be dying without a diagnosis being established. The carrier incidence of the condition in females, assuming complete ascertainment, is 1:55. Salt-losers in Wales appear to be more than twice as common as nonsalt-losers. HLA typing of certain affected families confirmed a genetic linkage between the congenital adrenal hyperplasia gene and HLA. This linkage appears to exist in both forms of congenital adrenal hyperplasia and suggests that the genes for salt-losing and nonsalt-losing forms of congenital adrenal hyperplasia are alleles. The linkage between congenital adrenal hyperplasia and HLA provides a potential method for antenatal detection. However, only a few parents would wish to take advantage of this method if it were readily available.

    Statistics from Altmetric.com

    Request Permissions

    If you wish to reuse any or all of this article please use the link below which will take you to the Copyright Clearance Center’s RightsLink service. You will be able to get a quick price and instant permission to reuse the content in many different ways.