Diabetes mellitus and optic atrophy: study of the Wolfram syndrome

Wolfram syndrome (WS), also known by the acronym DIDMOAD, is a rare and progresive hereditary disease of autosomal recessive inheritance which minimum ascertainment diagnostic criteria are the occurrence together of diabetes mellitus and optic atrophy before 15 years of age.

To describe the clinical, biochemical and molecular profile of WS in a tertiary care hospital in Mexico.

We reviewed patients records who fulfill the minimum ascertainment diagnostic criteria of WS presenting between January 1987 and May 2015 in a tertiary care hospital in Mexico.

Five patients fulfill the inclusion criteria (three male and two female). Diabetes mellitus was the first manifestation of the syndrome in all of them, with a mean age at diagnosis of 5.8 ± 2.71 years, while the WS diagnosis was established at a mean age of 15.8 ± 8.37 years. All the patients had optic atrophy and two of them presented with the complete DIDMOAD spectrum. We found new associations with autoimmune hepatitis and testicular cancer.

This study shows the variability of clinical presentation of WS, as well as two new associations.