Partial duplication 16q: report of two affected siblings resulting from a maternal translocation and literature review

Abstract

Two siblings with a partial duplication 16q, born to a woman with a balanced translocation (6; 16), are described. The first infant died at 8 weeks of age; the second died at 4 months. Fifteen other cases of duplications involving 16q have been reported, all of them derived from a balanced parental translocation. The most frequent physical findings have included dysmorphic facies characterized by high forehead, prominent nose, antimongoloid slant, malformed ears, and micrognathia, as well as flexion contractures of the joints, deformity of the feet, and genital hypoplasia in the male. Anorectal, intestinal and cardiac malformations were less frequent findings. Most of the affected infants died at ages ranging from 8 days to 6 months. The few with longer survival (up to 6 years) had a shorter, more distal segment duplication of chromosome 16. Although intrauterine growth retardation and microcephaly were not always present at birth, most of the infants had postnatal growth failure. The phenotypic and clinical findings of the two infants in this report are compared with those of previously reported cases, from which there appears to be correlation of the length of the 16q duplication with clinical phenotype and survivals.