Coloboma, mental retardation, hypogonadism, and obesity: Critical review of the so-called Biemond syndrome type 2, updated nosology, and delineation of three ''new'' syndromes

Biemond syndrome type 2 (BS2) is classically regarded as a recessively inherited condition (MIM 210350) comprising mental retardation, coloboma, obesity, polydactyly, hypogonadism, hydrocephalus, and facial dysostosis. Clinically, the disorder is closely related to Bardet-Biedl syndrome. Few cases have been reported, most of them before 1970. We present clinical data on three mentally retarded sporadic cases with coloboma, obesity, and hypogenitalism (in two of them), fitting at first glance a diagnosis of BS2. A review documents striking clinical variability among the patients said to have BS2. We propose a new nosology of those cases and delineate several new clinical forms. Purported BS2 cases may be divided into: (1) Bardet-Biedl syndrome with fortuitous coloboma or aniridia, (2) BS2 sensu stricto, a recessively inherited syndrome of sexual infantilism, short stature, coloboma, and preaxial polydactyly without obesity, only known from the original report, (3) a ''new'' dominantly inherited form of colobomatous microphthalmia occasionally associated with obesity, hypogonadism, and mental retardation, to which our observations belong, (4) cytogenetically proven Rubinstein-Taybi syndrome (one case), (5) an unclassifiable, early lethal familial syndrome resembling Buntinx-Majewski syndrome, and (6) a ''new'' coloboma-zygodactyly-clefting syndrome. The latter two syndromes may result from chromosomal anomaly. (C) 1997 Wiley-Liss, Inc.