Infantile neuronal ceroid lipofuscinoses (INCL) or Santavuori disease or Hagberg-Santavuori diseaseORPHA:79263
/ref> or Santavuori-Haltia disease or Infantile Finnish type neuronal ceroid lipofuscinosisClassic Infantile CLN1 Disease
/ref> or Balkan disease is a form of NCL and inherited as a recessive autosomal genetic trait. The disorder is progressive, degenerative and fatal, extremely rare worldwide – with approximately 60 official cases reported by 1982, perhaps 100 with the condition in total today – but relatively common in Finland due to the local

founder effect In population genetics, the founder effect is the loss of genetic variation that occurs when a new population is established by a very small number of individuals from a larger population. It was first fully outlined by Ernst Mayr in 1942, using ...

Presentation

The development of children born with INCL is normal for the first 8–18 months, but will then flounder and start to regress both physically and mentally. Motor skills and

speech Speech is a human vocal communication using language. Each language uses Phonetics, phonetic combinations of vowel and consonant sounds that form the sound of its words (that is, all English words sound different from all French words, even if ...

are lost, and optic atrophy causes blindness. A variety of neurological symptoms, such as epilepsy and myoclonic seizures, appear. The senses of hearing and touch remain unaffected. The average lifespan of an INCL child is 9–11 years.

Causes

It has been associated with

palmitoyl-protein thioesterase Palmitoyl protein hydrolase/thioesterases is an enzyme (EC 3.1.2.22) that removes thioester-linked fatty acyl groups such as palmitate from modified cysteine residues in proteins or peptides during lysosomal degradation. It catalyzes the reactio ...

Diagnosis

Treatment

Treatment is limited. Drugs can alleviate the symptoms, such as sleep difficulties and epilepsy.

Physiotherapy Physical therapy (PT), also known as physiotherapy, is one of the allied health professions. It is provided by physical therapists who promote, maintain, or restore health through physical examination, diagnosis, management, prognosis, patient ...

helps affected children retain the ability to remain upright for as long as possible, and prevents some of the pain. Recent attempts to treat INCL with

cystagon Cysteamine is a chemical compound that can be biosynthesized in mammals, including humans, by the degradation of coenzyme A. The intermediate pantetheine is broken down into cysteamine and pantothenic acid. It is the biosynthetic precursor to ...

have been unsuccessful.

References

External links