Kinky hair disease: twenty five years later

Kinky hair disease, first described in 1962, is a sex-linked disorder, with its gene located on the long arm of the X chromosome close to the centromere. The condition is marked by intellectural deterioration, seizures, and poorly pigmented, friable hair. Bony changes, resembling scurvy, tortuosities of the cerebral and systemic vasculature, and diverticuli of the bladder are also seen. Biochemically, the most diagnostic alteration is a marked reduction in blood copper and ceruloplasmin levels. The mechanism for the low serum copper has not been defined. Even though parental copper administration will correct the biochemical abnormalities, such treatment will not arrest cerebral deterioration.