Intrapartum diagnostic of Roberts syndrome - case presentation

Roberts syndrome is a rare disease, with multiple limb and skeletal abnormalities (called "pseudothalidomide disease"). There are only around 150 cases described in literature. We present a case of Roberts syndrome, diagnosed in moment of delivery, after a pregnancy without prenatal follow-up. The stillborn baby was naturally delivered by a 17-year-old primiparous woman at 38 weeks of amenorrhea. The pregnancy was not followed due to socioeconomic and family situation, and no prenatal ultrasound was performed. The male baby has 2650 g and presented several morphological abnormalities and tight double umbilical abdominal loop. The macroscopic evaluation showed: dolichocephaly, hypoplastic inferior maxilla with micrognathia, antimongoloid palpebral slant, pterygium colli, abnormal and lower implanted ears, superior limbs phocomelia, syndactyly at lower left limb and tetradactyly in all limbs, bilateral cryptorchidism, pancreatic aplasia. Roberts syndrome is a rare genetic disease with recessive autosomal transmission generated by mutations in ESCO2 gene, located on chromosome 8. The disease should be easy to diagnose by antenatal ultrasound examination, but in our case, the lack of prenatal follow-up determined the diagnostic at term. We believe consider this case is an argument towards introducing ultrasound-screening compulsory to all pregnancies. To identify a possible genetic mutation, further investigations of the parents are in progress, but classically the disease has a recessive autosomal transmission.