Research Letter Patau Syndrome With a Long Survival (146 Months): A Clinical Report and Review of Literature

American Journal of Medical Genetics 140A:92 – 93 (2006) 

Trisomy 13 is a clinically severe condition first described by Patau in 1960 [Smith et al., 1960]. The frequency of this syndrome is 1:3,000 live births [Tunca et al., 2001]. It is the third most frequent trisomy among live births [Phatak et al., 2004] after trisomy 21 (Down syndrome) and trisomy 18 (Edwards syndrome). Eighty-five percent of liveborns do not survive beyond 1 year of life, and most die before the age of 6 months [Duarte et al., 2004]. Trisomy 13 is characterized by multiple malformations of the cardiac, central nervous, and urogenital systems [Phatak et al., 2004]. There have only been five cases of patients with trisomy 13 previously reported, who had survived past the first decade [Redheendran et al., 1981; Singh, 1990; Zoll et al., 1993; Tunca et al., 2001]. In this report, we present a newborn with trisomy 13, the fourth longest described in the literature and the longest survival (146 months) reported in Greece. (Keep reading it...)