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ORPHA:1517

Cantú syndrome

low confidenceDisorder

Also known as: Congenital hypertrichosis-acromegaloid facial features spectrum · Congenital hypertrichosis-coarse facial features spectrum · Hypertrichotic osteochondrodysplasia

Publications

678

Trials

1

Interventional, condition-specific

Researchers

1,101

Distinct authors in sample

Gene link

ABCC9, KCNJ8

Definitive

Readiness

3/6

Stages with a signal

Clinical definition (Orphanet)

Cantu syndrome is a rare disorder characterized by hypertrichosis, osteochondrodysplasia, cardiomegaly, and dysmorphism.

How rare: <1 / 1 000 000 — fewer than one in a million. In a city the size of Kolkata, that might mean on the order of fifteen people.

Orphanet entry

Cross-references

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

Additional Mondo synonyms (2)

Cantu syndrome · hypertrichotic osteochondrodysplasia (Cantu syndrome)

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

An interventional trial matched this condition name on ClinicalTrials.gov — see trials below.

  1. Gene identifiedPresent

    Definitive — ABCC9, KCNJ8

  2. LiteraturePresent

    678 matched papers (444 in last 10 years) Source

  3. Phenotype characterisedNot checked

    Not yet enriched from Monarch / HPO

  4. Animal modelNot checked

    Not yet enriched from Monarch / Alliance

  5. Orphan designationNot checked

    FDA/EMA orphan-drug designation not enriched yet

  6. Interventional trialPresent

    1 matched on ClinicalTrials.gov

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 (ABCC9, KCNJ8).

GenCC classification: Definitive.

Phenotypes (Monarch / HPO)

Not enriched in this build — Monarch phenotype joins were not run for this record.

Animal models (Monarch / Alliance)

Not enriched in this build.

Literature

Is anyone studying this?

678

678 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=5449) is 41.

678 papers since the earliest indexed year in this search — median last-10-year count for a rare disease in this dataset is 41 (publications denominator n=5449).

444 in the last 10 years · low confidence

Phrase hits: 678 · MeSH hits: 0

Open Europe PMC search

Who's working on it?

1,101

Distinct author names in 200 sampled papers — named people below.

Who's working on it?

People publishing on this condition (sampled Europe PMC records). Affiliation is the most recent found in that sample.

  1. 01
    Nichols CG45 papers · 2026

    Department of Cell Biology and Physiology, and Center for the Investigation of Membrane Excitability Diseases (CIMED), Washington University, St Louis, MO, 63110, USA.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  2. 02
    McClenaghan C24 papers · 2026

    Department of Cell Biology and Physiology, and Center for the Investigation of Membrane Excitability Diseases (CIMED), Washington University, St Louis, MO, 63110, USA.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  3. 03
    Grange DK19 papers · 2026

    Department of Pediatrics, Division of Genetics and Genomic Medicine, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, Missouri 63110, USA. grange_d@kids.wustl.edu

    Papers in Europe PMC
  4. 04
    van Haaften G13 papers · 2026

    Department of Genetics, Center for Molecular Medicine, University Medical Center Utrecht, 3584 CX, Utrecht, the Netherlands. G.vanHaaften@umcutrecht.nl.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  5. 05
    Roessler HI10 papers · 2025

    Department of Genetics, Center for Molecular Medicine, University Medical Center Utrecht, 3584 CX, Utrecht, the Netherlands.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  6. 06
    van Haelst MM10 papers · 2026

    Department of Clinical Genetics, Amsterdam Medical Center, University of Amsterdam.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  7. 07
    Remedi MS9 papers · 2022

    Department of Medicine, Division of Endocrinology, Metabolism and Lipid Research, Washington University, St Louis, MO, 63110, USA.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  8. 08
    Singh GK8 papers · 2022

    Center for the Investigation of Membrane Excitability Diseases, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO 63110; Department of Pediatrics, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO 63110;

    Papers in Europe PMC
  9. 09
    Maqoud F7 papers · 2025

    Functional Gastrointestinal Disorders Research Group, National Institute of Gastroenterology Saverio de Bellis, I.R.C.C.S. Research Hospital, Milan, Italy.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  10. 10
    Tricarico D7 papers · 2025

    Section of Pharmacology, Department of Pharmacy-Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of Bari "Aldo Moro", Bari, Italy.

    Papers in Europe PMC

Clinical research

Is a treatment being tested?

1

interventional trials for this specific condition

1 interventional trial matched this specific condition name; none in our sample are currently recruiting.

Data as of 27 July 2026

1 interventional trial — more than 73% of diseases in the trials denominator have none at all (5114 of 7003; this disease is at the 76.8th percentile).

low confidence · 76.8th percentile (trials denominator)

Recruiting interventional trials

From the matched ClinicalTrials.gov set

1 interventional trials matched after quoted-phrase search and title/condition post-filter.

No currently recruiting studies in the matched set. Open the same search on ClinicalTrials.gov.

Where to find support

We do not yet link condition-specific patient organisations. These umbrella groups support undiagnosed and ultra-rare families:

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.

"Cantú syndrome" OR "Congenital hypertrichosis-acromegaloid facial features spectrum" OR "Congenital hypertrichosis-coarse facial features spectrum" OR "Hypertrichotic osteochondrodysplasia" OR "Cantu syndrome" OR "hypertrichotic osteochondrodysplasia (Cantu syndrome)"

Run this search on Europe PMC

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

"Cantú syndrome" OR "Congenital hypertrichosis-acromegaloid facial features spectrum" OR "Congenital hypertrichosis-coarse facial features spectrum" OR "Hypertrichotic osteochondrodysplasia" OR "Cantu syndrome" OR "hypertrichotic osteochondrodysplasia (Cantu syndrome)" OR "ABCC9" OR "KCNJ8"

Recall-expansion terms: ABCC9, KCNJ8

Interventional trials matched via: phrase (mesh = registered under a MeSH descriptor no name phrase would catch; recall-expansion = gene / selected parent terms used only for trials).

Study-type breakdown: 1 interventional · 0 observational · 0 expanded access. Only interventional studies enter the trial headline.

Query health: ok — strategies attempted: phrase, recall-expansion; with hits: phrase, recall-expansion

Run this search on ClinicalTrials.gov

Confidence reasoning

  • Preferred label is short or not clearly distinctive
  • No synonyms dropped by stoplist
  • No label/synonym collisions with other diseases in this corpus
  • Publication count (678) is implausibly high for prevalence class "<1 / 1 000 000" — treat as possible over-matching, not a measure of research intensity

Ingested 2026-07-26T17:37:13.537Z