A new inherited interstitial deletion of the distal long arm of chromosome 4.

A 12-year-old boy showed mild dysmorphic features, late presentation of learning difficulties and behaviour problems, obesity, breast hypertrophy and bilateral slipped capital femoral epiphysis. His mother also has mild dysmorphic features, obesity, and a similar history of late presentation of learning difficulties and behaviour problems. Cytogenetic analysis demonstrated an inherited distal long arm deletion of one chromosome 4. The boy's karyotype was interpreted as 46,XY,del(4)(q32 q33)mat and the mother's karyotype as 46,XX,del(4)(q32 q33). This is the second report of an inherited distal 4q deletion and the first report of interstitial chromosome 4 deletion involving q32 q33 segments. Copyright 1999 S. Karger AG, Basel