Femoral-facial syndrome: long term follow-up and associated array CGH abnormalities.

The femoral-facial syndrome is usually sporadic and its aetiology remains unknown. Non-genetic factors as maternal diabetes mellitus have been associated. Reports of familial cases have otherwise suggested autosomal dominant inheritance. We report the 20 years clinical follow-up of a girl with femoral-facial syndrome diagnosed at birth. Recently, array CGH investigation identified a 1400 kb duplication at 9q31.1, including the gene SMC2, and a 343 kb deletion at 12q24.33 including the genes CHFR, ZNF26, ZNF140, ZNF10 and ZNF268. Moreover, the patient presents a Mayer-Rokitansky-Kuster-Hauser syndrome diagnosed at puberty. Femoral-facial syndrome and Mullerian agenesis may reflect different defects in the primary axial mesodermal development, being the consequences of same environmental or/and genetic factors during blastogenesis. Among these genetic factors, we suggest the possible involvement of the two copy number variants reported here