Rare diseases · Sign or symptom
Hypotelorism
Abnormally close eyes
HP:0000601
What it means
Interpupillary distance less than 2 SD below the mean (alternatively, the appearance of an decreased interpupillary distance or closely spaced eyes).
Rare diseases that can present with this56
Very common80–99%
15- Alobar holoprosencephaly
- Epiphyseal stippling-osteoclastic hyperplasia syndrome
- Harrod syndrome
- Holoprosencephaly-craniosynostosis syndrome
- Holoprosencephaly-postaxial polydactyly syndrome
- Intellectual disability-polydactyly-uncombable hair syndrome
- Lobar holoprosencephaly
- Microbrachycephaly-ptosis-cleft lip syndrome
- Midline interhemispheric variant of holoprosencephaly
- Non-distal duplication 13q syndrome
- Norrie disease
- Ring chromosome 7 syndrome
- Semilobar holoprosencephaly
- Trisomy 13 syndrome
- Trisomy 18p syndrome
Common30–79%
17- 10q22.3q23.3microduplication syndrome
- 2q23.1microduplication syndrome
- Acrootoocular syndrome
- Braddock syndrome
- Cataract-intellectual disability-hypogonadism syndrome
- Cranioectodermal dysplasia
- Holoprosencephaly
- Hydranencephaly
- Isolated sedoheptulokinase deficiency
- Microcephalic primordial dwarfism, Dauber type
- Microform holoprosencephaly
- Mitochondrial myopathy-cerebellar ataxia-pigmentary retinopathy syndrome
- Multiple pterygium-malignant hyperthermia syndrome
- Non-syndromic metopic craniosynostosis
- Oculodentodigital dysplasia
- Postnatal microcephaly-infantile hypotonia-spastic diplegia-dysarthria-intellectual disability syndrome
- Trigonocephaly-short stature-developmental delay syndrome
Sometimes5–29%
21- 10q22.3q23.3microdeletion syndrome
- 16p11.2p12.2microdeletion syndrome
- 1q41q42microdeletion syndrome
- 6p22microdeletion syndrome
- Baller-Gerold syndrome
- Congenital muscular dystrophy with intellectual disability and severe epilepsy
- Galloway-Mowat syndrome
- Holoprosencephaly-radial heart renal anomalies syndrome
and 13 more in this range
The range is how often this sign appears among people diagnosed with each disease — it is not a probability of having any of them. Many of these signs also occur in common, non-rare conditions. A sign on this page is a conversation to have with a clinician, not a conclusion.
Part of the broader category
Also called: Closely spaced eyes · Decreased distance between eye sockets · Decreased distance between eyes · Decreased interpupillary distance · Decreased orbital separation · Ocular hypotelorism
Tracking symptoms like this for someone? Eleplan keeps symptoms, diagnoses, medications and every specialist in one plan.
Start free with EleplanThis page uses the Human Phenotype Ontology (2026-06-23) — Human Phenotype Ontology Consortium, hpo.jax.org. Disease associations from Orphanet (INSERM), CC BY 4.0. Content is educational and is not medical advice.