Microphthalmia-brain atrophy syndrome

What it is

A rare genetic neurodegenerative disorder characterized by congenital microphthalmia, sunken eyes, blindness, microcephaly, severe intellectual disability, progressive spasticity, and seizures. Psychomotor development is normal in the first 6-8 months of life and thereafter declines rapidly and continuously. Brain MRI reveals progressive and extensive degenerative changes, especially cortex, cerebellum, brainstem, and corpus callosum atrophy, with complete loss of cerebral white matter.

Key facts

Prevalence

<1 / 1 000 000

Age of onset

Neonatal

Inheritance

Autosomal recessive

Classified as

Malformation syndrome

Prevalence figures describe populations, not individuals, and are often estimates from a single study. Where the figure is an incidence or a birth prevalence, it says so.

Signs and symptoms

These ranges are how often a sign appears across everyone diagnosed, not a prediction for one person — most people have some of these and not others. Orphanet also records findings that are specifically absent in this disease; those are in the data but not listed here.

ICD-10 codes

ICD-10 has no distinct code for most rare diseases, so many are filed under the nearest available one. A shared code identifies the group, not this disease — the ORPHAcode above is what identifies it.

Cross-references