RARE DISEASERESEARCH ATLAS

ORPHA:2273

Ichthyosis follicularis-alopecia-photophobia syndrome

high confidenceDisorder

Also known as: IFAP syndrome · Ichthyosis follicularis-atrichia-photophobia syndrome

Query health: suspect — Only one of 2 strategies returned hits (phrase). Source fetch failed for trials.

Publications

134

59.8th percentile

Trials

Interventional, condition-specific

Researchers

886

Distinct authors in sample

Gene link

MBTPS2

Definitive

Readiness

2/6

Stages with a signal

Clinical definition (Orphanet)

A rare genetic disorder characterized by the triad of ichthyosis follicularis, alopecia, and photophobia from birth.

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 (6)

IFAP syndrome with or without BRESHECK syndrome · IFAP syndrome with or without BRESHECK syndrome, X-linked recessive · IFAP/BRESHECK syndrome · ichthyosis follicularis, atrichia, and photophobia with or without brain anomalies, retardation, ectodermal dysplasia, skeletal malformations, Hirschsprung disease, Ear/eye anomalies, cleft palate/cryptorchidism, and kidney dysplasia/hypoplasia · ichthyosis follicularis-alopecia-photophobia syndrome · ichthyosis follicularis-atrichia-photophobia 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.”

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 identifiedPresent

    Definitive — MBTPS2

  2. LiteraturePresent

    134 matched papers (69 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 trialNot checked

    Trial fetch failed or incomplete

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 (MBTPS2).

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?

134

134 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=5449) is 41.

134 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).

69 in the last 10 years · high confidence · 59.8th percentile (publications denominator)

Phrase hits: 134 · MeSH hits: 0

Open Europe PMC search

Who's working on it?

886

Distinct author names in 134 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
    Happle R8 papers · 2014

    Department of Dermatology, Deutschhausstrasse, Marburg, Germany. happle@mailer.uni-marburg.de

    Papers in Europe PMC
  2. 02
    Traupe H7 papers · 2026

    Klinik für Hautkrankheiten, Universitätsklinik Münster, 48149 Münster, Germany.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  3. 03
    Grzeschik KH6 papers · 2020

    Centre for Human Genetics, University of Marburg, 35033 Marburg, Germany.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  4. 04
    Bornholdt D5 papers · 2020

    Institut fuer Humangenetik, Philipps-Universitaet, Marburg, Germany.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  5. 05
    Fischer J5 papers · 2026

    Institute of Human Genetics, Medical Faculty and Medical Center, University of Freiburg, Freiburg, Germany.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  6. 06
    König A4 papers · 2013

    Department of Dermatology, Philipp University, Marburg, Germany.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  7. 07
    Li M4 papers · 2024

    Department of Dermatology, Xinhua Hospital, Shanghai Jiaotong University School of Medicine, 1665 Kongjiang Road, Shanghai 200092, China.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  8. 08
    Mégarbané A4 papers · 2013
    Papers in Europe PMC
  9. 09
    Mégarbané H4 papers · 2013

    Service de Dermatologie, Hôtel-Dieu de France, Beirut, Lebanon. megarban@dm.net.lb

    Papers in Europe PMC
  10. 10
    Oji V4 papers · 2026

    Department of Dermatology, University Hospital of Münster, Münster, Germany.

    Papers in Europe PMC

Clinical research

Is a treatment being tested?

interventional trials for this specific condition

We could not load trial data for this condition right now.

Data as of 27 July 2026

high confidence

Recruiting interventional trials

From the matched ClinicalTrials.gov set

Trial data could not be loaded for this build. This is not the same as finding zero interventional trials.

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.

"Ichthyosis follicularis-alopecia-photophobia syndrome" OR "IFAP syndrome" OR "Ichthyosis follicularis-atrichia-photophobia syndrome" OR "IFAP syndrome with or without BRESHECK syndrome" OR "IFAP syndrome with or without BRESHECK syndrome, X-linked recessive" OR "IFAP/BRESHECK syndrome" OR "ichthyosis follicularis, atrichia, and photophobia with or without brain anomalies, retardation, ectodermal dysplasia, skeletal malformations, Hirschsprung disease, Ear/eye anomalies, cleft palate/cryptorchidism, and kidney dysplasia/hypoplasia"

Run this search on Europe PMC

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

(empty)

Recall-expansion terms: MBTPS2, inherited ichthyosis

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

Source errors: trials: Error: Failed after 5 retries: https://clinicaltrials.gov/api/v2/studies?query.cond=%22Ichthyosis%20follicularis-alopecia-photophobia%20syndrome%22%20OR%20%22IFAP%20syndrome%22%20OR%20%22Ichthyosis%20follicularis-atrichia-photophobia%20syndrome%22%20OR%20%22IFAP%20syndrome%20with%20or%20without%20BRESHECK%20syndrome%22%20OR%20%22IFAP%20syndrome%20with%20or%20without%20BRESHECK%20syndrome%2C%20X-linked%20recessive%22%20OR%20%22IFAP%2FBRESHECK%20syndrome%22%20OR%20%22ichthyosis%20follicularis%2C%20atrichia%2C%20and%20photophobia%20with%20or%20without%20brain%20anomalies%2C%20retardation%2C%20ectodermal%20dysplasia%2C%20skeletal%20malformations%2C%20Hirschsprung%20disease%2C%20Ear%2Feye%20anomalies%2C%20cleft%20palate%2Fcryptorchidism%2C%20and%20kidney%20dysplasia%2Fhypoplasia%22%20OR%20%22MBTPS2%22%20OR%20%22inherited%20ichthyosis%22&format=json&pageSize=100&countTotal=true — Error: HTTP 400 for https://clinicaltrials.gov/api/v2/studies?query.cond=%22Ichthyosis%20follicularis-alopecia-photophobia%20syndrome%22%20OR%20%22IFAP%20syndrome%22%20OR%20%22Ichthyosis%20follicularis-atrichia-photophobia%20syndrome%22%20OR%20%22IFAP%20syndrome%20with%20or%20without%20BRESHECK%20syndrome%22%20OR%20%22IFAP%20syndrome%20with%20or%20without%20BRESHECK%20syndrome%2C%20X-linked%20recessive%22%20OR%20%22IFAP%2FBRESHECK%20syndrome%22%20OR%20%22ichthyosis%20follicularis%2C%20atrichia%2C%20and%20photophobia%20with%20or%20without%20brain%20anomalies%2C%20retardation%2C%20ectodermal%20dysplasia%2C%20skeletal%20malformations%2C%20Hirschsprung%20disease%2C%20Ear%2Feye%20anomalies%2C%20cleft%20palate%2Fcryptorchidism%2C%20and%20kidney%20dysplasia%2Fhypoplasia%22%20OR%20%22MBTPS2%22%20OR%20%22inherited%20ichthyosis%22&format=json&pageSize=100&countTotal=true

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 2026-07-26T19:39:30.561Z