Progeria: an extremely unusual disorder.

Abstract

Hutchinson-Gilford progeria syndrome, also known as progeria, is an extremely rare disorder with an incidence rate of 1 in 8 million. It occurs sporadically, and patients suffering from this syndrome usually exhibit premature ageing. It has an autosomal recessive inheritance with a slight male predominance. The affected children usually die early with an average life span of 13.4 years. The most common cause of death in such patients is a cardio-vascular abnormality such as myocardial infarction. We present a rare case of progeria in an 8-year-old boy who was diagnosed clinically and was referred to our department for a skeletal survey. Almost all of the typical radiological findings were present in this case, which further confirmed the clinical diagnosis of progeria.