CLINICAL CASE OF ATAVISM IN A CHILD WITH BIRCH-JENSEN SYNDROME

Abstract

The article describes a clinical case of a rare genetic disease in a child - Birch – Jensen syndrome. The uniqueness of this case is that cleavage (pincer deformation) was observed on both hands, feet, lip, palate. This disease was first described by Birch – Jensen in 1949 – Birch – Jensen syndrome [1]. The modern name is “typical” or “true cleavage of the hand, feet” [2], deformity of the lobster (Lobster clav foot) [3], EEC syndrome (ectrodactyly – ectrodermal dysplasia - clefting syndrome) [4].

At the given time, there is no consensus about how atavisms arise and what their place in evolution is. The most well-known human atavisms are the presence of a tailed appendage: an under-tail and a true tail.

Other human atavisms are also known: “hairy people”, membranes between fingers, additional pairs of mammary glands, a chin fistula that resembles the branchial cleft of mammalian ancestors, cleft lip, second row of teeth, high scapula (Sprengel syndrome) [5, 6].