1.‘Pai Syndrome’ with anterior alveolar polyp: A variant of a rare clinical entity
Kallyan Kishore Debnath ; Yogesvaran Kanapaty ; Yong Dong Jieh ; Shobashinni Chandran ; Mohd. Adzreil Bakri
The Medical Journal of Malaysia 2019;74(3):229-230
Pai syndrome is a rare syndrome of unknown cause,
comprising a particular variety of congenital developmental
malformation with variable phenotypical presentations. It
was first reported by Pai et al., in 1987 when it was described
in a male new-born as an unusual combination of three rare
anomalies, i.e., complete median cleft lip, cutaneous polyps,
and developmental midline lipomas of the central nervous
system.
1 After that, over sixty similar cases have been
reported, although their phenotypic presentations were not
very similar, ranging from mild-facial dysmorphism to severe
frontonasal dysplasia (FND). The perceived impression about
the underlying aetiology goes towards a multifactorial origin.
No chromosomal abnormalities have been described in
patients with PS on karyotype. Diagnosis of the syndrome is
based on clinical signs and associated pathology, the
common clinical component being midline facial skin
masses. Minimum diagnostic criteria as suggested by Castori
et al.
2 and Lederer et al.
3
, one or more hamartomatous nasal
polyps plus median cleft lip (with or without cleft alveolus),
and/or alveolar process congenital polyp, and/or pericallosal lipoma. Pericallosal lipoma is a common finding
(85%) in this syndrome which is frequently associated with
various degrees of intracerebral malformations such as
agenesis or dysgenesis of corpus callosum.
3 Most of the cases
of PS have been diagnosed postnatally after birth. Typically,
the condition is still not found to have any negative impact
on psychoneurological development. In a recent report of an
8-year-long follow-up case, Imai et al., observed some
attention-deficit disorder, but its definite relationship with the
syndrome is yet to be confirmed.
4