Genetic investigation of patients with tall stature

Patients with tall stature often remain undiagnosed after clinical investigation and few studies have genetically assessed this group, most of them without a systematic approach.

To assess prospectively a group of individuals with tall stature, with and without syndromic features, and to establish a molecular diagnosis for their growth disorder.

Screening by karyotype (n = 42), chromosome microarray analyses (CMA) (n = 16), MS-MLPA (n = 2) targeted panel (n = 12) and whole-exome sequencing (n = 31).

We selected 42 patients with tall stature after exclusion of pathologies in GH/IGF1 axis and divided them into syndromic (n = 30) and non-syndromic (n = 12) subgroups.

Frequencies of pathogenic findings.

We identified two patients with chromosomal abnormalities including SHOX trisomy by karyotype, one 9q22.3 microdeletion syndrome by CMA, two cases of Beckwith-Wiedemann syndrome by targeted MS-MLPA analysis and nine cases with heterozygous pathogenic or likely pathogenic genetic variants by multigene analysis techniques (FBN1 = 3, NSD1 = 2, NFIX = 1, SUZ12 = 1, CHD8 = 1, MC4R = 1). Three of 20 patients analyzed by WES had their diagnosis established. Only one non-syndromic patient had a definitive diagnosis. The sequential genetic assessment diagnosed 14 out of 42 (33.3%) tall patients.

A systematic molecular approach of patients with tall stature was able to identify the etiology in 13 out of 30 (43.3%) syndromic and 1 out of 12 (8.3%) non-syndromic patients, contributing to the genetic counseling and avoiding unfavorable outcomes in the syndromic subgroup.