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ORPHA:101351

Familial isolated congenital asplenia

low confidenceDisorder

Publications

2,956

Trials

0

Interventional, condition-specific

Researchers

69

Distinct authors in sample

Gene link

RPSA

Definitive

Readiness

3/6

Stages with a signal

Clinical definition (Orphanet)

Familial isolated asplenia is a rare, non-syndromic, potentially life-threatening visceral characterized by the absence of normal spleen function, resulting in a primary immunodeficiency. Typically, the condition manifests with severe, recurrent, overwhelming infections (especially pneumococcal sepsis) in otherwise apparently healthy infants. In adults with no history of severe sepsis in infancy, thrombocytosis may be the presenting sign. Howell-Jolly bodies on blood smears and an absent spleen on abdominal ultrasound examination are highly suggestive associated findings.

Orphanet entry

Cross-references

Joined from Mondo / Orphanet. MeSH labels may enter searches; UMLS / OMIM / NCIT are stored for reference.

Research stages

Trial readiness signals

Where this condition sits on an open-data research pipeline — not how close a treatment is, and not medical advice. Empty stages often mean “not in these databases under this Mondo ID,” not “impossible.”

3/6 stages with a signal

No matched interventional trial; the gene is known and literature exists — preclinical or natural-history work may still be the practical next step.

  1. Gene identifiedPresent

    Definitive — RPSA

  2. LiteraturePresent

    2,956 matched papers (1,902 in last 10 years) Source

  3. Phenotype characterisedPresent

    3 HPO annotations (e.g. Thrombocytosis; Asplenia; Howell-Jolly bodies) Source

  4. Animal modelNot found

    No Alliance genotype “model of” associations via Monarch for these Mondo IDs

  5. Orphan designationNot found

    No FDA or EMA orphan-drug designation matched this disease via UMLS or preferred name Source

  6. Interventional trialNot found

    No matched interventional trial under our ClinicalTrials.gov rules

Biology

Genes and phenotypes

Gene–disease validity from GenCC, plus phenotypes and animal models joined from Monarch Initiative via Mondo ID — not a clinical diagnosis aid.

Do we know what causes it?

Yes — we know a specific gene responsible (RPSA).

GenCC classification: Definitive.

Phenotypes (Monarch / HPO)

3

Associated phenotypes · MONDO:0010066

  • Thrombocytosis
  • Asplenia
  • Howell-Jolly bodies

Animal models (Monarch / Alliance)

None returned for this Mondo ID. Empty here is not proof that no model organism work exists under another name or gene.

Monarch fetch 2026-07-29

Therapies

Designations, candidates, and chemicals

FDA OOPD and EMA orphan designations, Open Targets clinical candidates, and CTD chemical associations via MyDisease.info. These never change the interventional-trial headline.

Orphan designation (FDA · EMA)

No designation matched this disease via UMLS or preferred name on the FDA OOPD mirror or EMA orphan register. Absence here is not proof that none exists under another wording.

Open Targets candidates

No drugs or clinical candidates returned for this Mondo ID on Open Targets.

CTD chemicals (MyDisease.info)

No CTD chemical associations returned for this Mondo ID.

Literature

Is anyone studying this?

2,956

2,956 papers have been published on this condition. That is a real research literature — still far smaller than common diseases (breast cancer: over 700,000 papers). Median papers in the last 10 years for a rare disease in this dataset (publications denominator n=3967) is 59.

2,956 papers since the earliest indexed year in this search — median last-10-year count for a rare disease in this dataset is 59 (publications denominator n=3967).

1,902 in the last 10 years · low confidence

Phrase hits: 3 · MeSH hits: 10

Open Europe PMC search

Who's working on it?

69

Distinct author names in 13 sampled papers — named people below.

Who's working on it?

No interventional trial matched this name; these authors publish on it in the sampled literature — a practical starting point for contact.

  1. 01
    Douni E2 papers · 2017

    Laboratory of Genetics, Department of Biotechnology, Agricultural University of Athens, Athens, Greece.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  2. 02
    Ioakeimidis F2 papers · 2017

    Laboratory of Genetics, Department of Biotechnology, Agricultural University of Athens, Athens, Greece.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  3. 03
    Li Y2 papers · 2024

    Division of Pancreatic Surgery, Department of General Surgery, West China Hospital of Sichuan University, Chengdu, Sichuan, People's Republic of China.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  4. 04
    Ahmed SA1 paper · 2010

    Luton and Dunstable Hospital NHS Trust, 40 St. Augustine Avenue, Luton LU3 1QB, UK. Dr_ather77@hotmail.com

    Papers in Europe PMC
  5. 05
    Bailey-Lundberg J1 paper · 2023

    Department of Anesthesiology, Center for Perioperative Medicine, McGovern Medical School, The University of Texas Health Sciences Center, Houston, TX 77030, USA.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  6. 06
    Belin V1 paper · 2002
    Papers in Europe PMC
  7. 07
    BRADBURY S1 paper · 1965
    Papers in Europe PMC
  8. 08
    Brosset P1 paper · 2002
    Papers in Europe PMC
  9. 09
    Cai H1 paper · 2024

    Division of Pancreatic Surgery, Department of General Surgery, West China Hospital of Sichuan University, Chengdu, Sichuan, People's Republic of China.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  10. 10
    Cai Y1 paper · 2024

    Division of Pancreatic Surgery, Department of General Surgery, West China Hospital of Sichuan University, Chengdu, Sichuan, People's Republic of China.

    Papers in Europe PMC

Clinical research

Is a treatment being tested?

0

interventional trials for this specific condition

No interventional trial testing a treatment matched this specific condition name on ClinicalTrials.gov (observational studies and pan-disease registries are listed separately when present).

Data as of 11 September 2026 · last trial check 11 September 2026

No matched interventional trials. This is true for 77.2% of diseases in the trials denominator (5501 of 7126). Here are the researchers publishing on it.

low confidence · 38.6th percentile (trials denominator)

Recruiting interventional trials

From the matched ClinicalTrials.gov set

No interventional trial testing a treatment was found for this specific condition name on ClinicalTrials.gov.

See who's working on it — people publishing on this disease are often the practical next contact when no trial is listed.

Other registries (secondary)

Broader net from EU CTIS, ISRCTN, and ICTRP when available — deduped against ClinicalTrials.gov IDs already counted above. Dual-model LLM relevance gates what we keep. These rows are not added to the interventional headline.

raw 0 · after dedupe 0 · already on CT.gov 0 · kept 0 · parent 0 · uncertain 0 · dropped 0 · fetched 2026-07-30

Source notes: ictrp: Error: ICTRP public search unavailable (WHO portal is SPA-only; SOAP needs partnership). Tried: https://apps.who.int/tri

No secondary-registry studies passed dual-model relevance for this condition name (after dedupe).

Where to find support

Condition-specific patient organisations, when Orphanet lists them, are on the disease’s Orphanet page. We also link umbrella groups that support undiagnosed and ultra-rare families.

Orphanet entry for Familial isolated congenital asplenia — check Associations / patient organisations on that page.

India — NPRD

Last verified 2026-07-26

This ORPHAcode is not on our curated NPRD list (direct or Mondo-parent match). That does not decide clinical eligibility; families in India should ask a notified Centre of Excellence about current coverage.

Hand-curated for this project. ORPHAcode mappings are best-effort and may be incomplete or imprecise for umbrella categories. Parent (Mondo) matches mean the policy lists a broader category — confirm eligibility with a Centre of Excellence. Financial entitlements summarised from public policy statements and may change. This is not official government guidance.

How we counted this

Europe PMC query (preferred label + any corrected label + Orphanet and Mondo exact synonyms, stoplisted; unioned with resolved MeSH labels when available). UMLS / OMIM / NCIT cross-references are stored on the overview but are not added to the query string.

("Familial isolated congenital asplenia") OR (MESH:"Splenic Hypoplasia") OR ("RPSA" OR "RPSA syndrome" OR "RPSA-related")

Run this search on Europe PMC

MeSH descriptor terms unioned into the query: Splenic Hypoplasia

ClinicalTrials.gov query (quoted phrases + MeSH via query.cond, plus recall-expansion terms when used):

"Familial isolated congenital asplenia" OR "Splenic Hypoplasia"

Study-type breakdown: 0 interventional · 0 observational · 0 expanded access. Only interventional studies enter the trial headline.

Query health: ok — strategies attempted: phrase, mesh; with hits: phrase, mesh

Run this search on ClinicalTrials.gov

Confidence reasoning

  • Preferred label is multi-word and distinctive
  • No synonyms dropped by stoplist
  • No label/synonym collisions with other diseases in this corpus
  • Publication count (2956) is extremely high with unknown/missing prevalence — treat as possible over-matching, not proven research intensity

Ingested 2026-07-27T07:21:54.747Z