Wolf-Hirschhorn Syndrome

Wolf Hirschhorn affects 1 in 50,000 new born babies. Wolf Hirschhorn is caused by the partial deletion of the short arm on chrmosome 4. (pictured below)

Wolf Hirschhorn is characterized as a person with a disappearance on one of the arms of chromosome 4. Physical features include: Intrauterine growth restriction, mental retardation, characteristic facial dysmorphism, microcephaly, earlobe anomalies and closure defects ( cleft lip, coloboma of the eye, and cardiac septal affects ). Wolf-Hirschhorn also causes the person to have seizures and to have dental defects such as missing teeth. However 85-90% of cases of Wolf- Hirschhorn Syndrome are not inherited they are simply caused during a mutation when the egg and sperm meet. However the disorder may be inherited by a parent with the same disorder. The life expectancy for someone with Wolf-Hirschhorn is about 25. The oldest person still living with Wolf-Hirschhorn syndrome was born in 1949. Currently no population is a risk for Wolf-Hirschhorn syndrome because it is so rare. To date there are no known treatments for Wolf-Hirschhorn Syndrome.