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ORPHA:1917

Fetal methylmercury syndrome

high confidenceDisorder

Also known as: Congenital Minamata disease · Fetal methylmercury poisoning · Intrauterine methylmercury poisoning · Prenatal methylmercury poisoning

Publications

105

38.3th percentile

Trials

0

Interventional, condition-specific

Researchers

283

Distinct authors in sample

Gene link

—

Readiness

2/6

Stages with a signal

Clinical definition (Orphanet)

A toxic embryofetopathy characterized by a group of symptoms with unspecific neurologic involvement that may be observed in a foetus or newborn when the mother was exposed during pregnancy to excessive amounts of methylmercury.

How rare: How common this is has not been clearly measured.

Orphanet entry

Cross-references

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

Additional Mondo synonyms (1)

Methyl mercury antenatal infection

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.”

2/6 stages with a signal

Research-stage checklist from open sources (GenCC, literature, Monarch when enriched, ClinicalTrials.gov). Not a prognosis or care recommendation.

  1. Gene identifiedNot found

    No GenCC disease–gene assertion in this build

  2. LiteraturePresent

    105 matched papers (24 in last 10 years) Source

  3. Phenotype characterisedPresent

    5 HPO annotations (e.g. Microcephaly; Hearing impairment; Hypotonia) 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?

Not yet — the cause hasn't been pinned down in GenCC.

No strong gene–disease assertion joined for this Orphanet entity.

Phenotypes (Monarch / HPO)

5

Associated phenotypes · MONDO:0016013

  • Microcephaly
  • Hearing impairment
  • Hypotonia
  • Short stature
  • Visual impairment

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)

16 associated chemicals · 99 pathways. Therapeutic evidence is listed first when present — not a treatment recommendation.

  • 1,2-bis(2-aminophenoxy)ethane N,N,N',N'-tetraacetic acid acetoxymethyl ester · therapeutic
  • 3,9-bis((ethylthio)methyl)-K-252a · therapeutic
  • diphenyldiselenide · therapeutic
  • Dizocilpine Maleate · therapeutic
  • Glutathione · therapeutic
  • Hexamethonium · therapeutic
  • Melatonin · therapeutic
  • Memantine · therapeutic
  • Prazosin · therapeutic
  • Riluzole · therapeutic
  • Calcium · marker/mechanism
  • Mercuric Chloride · marker/mechanism

Pathways: Endocrine resistance; MAPK signaling pathway; ErbB signaling pathway; cAMP signaling pathway; Mitophagy - animal; Apoptosis; Wnt signaling pathway; Osteoclast differentiation

MyDisease.info · MONDO:0016013

Literature

Is anyone studying this?

105

105 papers have ever been published on this condition (under this name). For scale, breast cancer has over 700,000. Median papers in the last 10 years for a rare disease in this dataset (publications denominator n=3967) is 59.

105 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).

24 in the last 10 years · high confidence · 38.3th percentile (publications denominator)

Phrase hits: 105 · MeSH hits: 0

Open Europe PMC search

Who's working on it?

283

Distinct author names in 105 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
    Clarkson TW14 papers · 2007

    Department of Environmental Medicine, University of Rochester School of Medicine, Rochester, New York 14642, USA. tcw30@aol.com

    Papers in Europe PMC
  2. 02
    Myers GJ8 papers · 2007

    Department of Neurology, University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry, New York 14642, USA. gmyers@mailneurology.rochester.edu

    Papers in Europe PMC
  3. 03
    Yorifuji T8 papers · 2026

    Department of Epidemiology, Okayama University Graduate School of Medicine, Dentistry and Pharmaceutical Sciences, 2-5-1 Shikata-cho, Kita-ku, Okayama 700-8558, Japan. yorichan@md.okayama-u.ac.jp

    Papers in Europe PMC
  4. 04
    Aschner M6 papers · 2024

    Department of Molecular Pharmacology, Albert Einstein College of Medicine , Bronx, New York.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  5. 05
    Harada M6 papers · 2009

    Department of Social Welfare Studies, Kumamoto Gakuen University.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  6. 06
    Davidson PW5 papers · 2007
    Papers in Europe PMC
  7. 07
    Kado Y5 papers · 2026

    b Department of Psychology , Faculty of Letters, Kansai University , Osaka , Japan.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  8. 08
    Amin-Zaki L4 papers · 1987
    Papers in Europe PMC
  9. 09
    Cox C4 papers · 2000
    Papers in Europe PMC
  10. 10
    Grandjean P4 papers · 2018

    Department of Environmental Medicine, University of Southern Denmark, Odense, Denmark. pgrand@hsph.harvard.edu

    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.

high 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 2026-07-29

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 Fetal methylmercury syndrome — 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.

"Fetal methylmercury syndrome" OR "Congenital Minamata disease" OR "Fetal methylmercury poisoning" OR "Intrauterine methylmercury poisoning" OR "Prenatal methylmercury poisoning" OR "Methyl mercury antenatal infection"

Run this search on Europe PMC

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

"Fetal methylmercury syndrome" OR "Congenital Minamata disease" OR "Fetal methylmercury poisoning" OR "Intrauterine methylmercury poisoning" OR "Prenatal methylmercury poisoning" OR "Methyl mercury antenatal infection"

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

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

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

Ingested 2026-07-26T18:30:12.334Z