New and fatal lung disease discovered

Wednesday, July 20, 2016
News
It involves two Dutch girls from one family and an American boy and girl, also from one family, so says genetics expert dr. Saskia van der Crabben from the (UMCU) Universitary Medical Centre from Utrecht, the Netherlands, who discovered this disease in the Netherlands. “This illness revealed itself in their first year with all four children. None reached their fourth year.” Whether more children carry this aberration or have died from is unknown and under investigation at the moment.

LICS

The disease is called “Lics”, Lung disease Immune deficiency Chromosome breaks Syndrome. It characterizes by an increased susceptibility to infection and suppresses some of the natural defenses. It leads to a severe and rapidly progressive, respiratory infection.

“We, as researchers, have still a lot of questions that need to be answered, stresses dr. van der Crabben. Questions like: have more children died of this disease? It is very well possible that doctors have noticed an unexplainable respiratory infection, that can now be classified as Lics. Our job is to gather as much information as we can and inform our colleagues of this problem.”

Independently, the researchers and doctors at (BMC) Baylor College of Medicine in Houston (USA), the (US) University of Sussex (UK) and the UMC Utrecht discovered the disease and decided to join forces and combine their knowledge. Their findings have just been published in two articles in a medical journal for clinical research.