RARE DISEASERESEARCH ATLAS

ORPHA:263347

MRCS syndrome

low confidenceDisorder

Also known as: Microcornea-rod-cone dystrophy-cataract-posterior staphyloma syndrome

Publications

8,252

Trials

0

Interventional, condition-specific

Researchers

160

Distinct authors in sample

Gene link

Readiness

1/6

Stages with a signal

Clinical definition (Orphanet)

MRCS syndrome is a rare, genetic retinal disorder characterized by bilateral microcornea, rod-cone , cataracts and posterior staphyloma, in the absence of other systemic features. Night blindness is typically the presenting manifestation and nystagmus, strabismus, astigmatism and angle closure glaucoma may be associated findings. visual acuity deterioration, due to pulverulent-like cataracts, results in poor vision ranging from no light perception to 20/400.

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 (1)

microcornea-rod-cone dystrophy-cataract-posterior staphyloma 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.”

1/6 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

    8,252 matched papers (4,759 in last 10 years) Source

  3. Phenotype characterisedNot found

    No HPO disease–phenotype associations via Monarch for these Mondo IDs

  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)

None returned for this Mondo ID. That often means “not linked under this ID,” not “no clinical features.”

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?

8,252

8,252 papers — among the better-studied rare conditions, though still a fraction of common-disease literature (breast cancer: over 700,000). Median papers in the last 10 years for a rare disease in this dataset (publications denominator n=3967) is 59.

8,252 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).

4,759 in the last 10 years · low confidence

Phrase hits: 24 · MeSH hits: 0

Open Europe PMC search

Who's working on it?

160

Distinct author names in 24 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
    Huang XF2 papers · 2025

    Lab for Stem Cell and Retinal Regeneration, Institute of Stem Cell Research; Division of Ophthalmic Genetics, The Eye Hospital, Wenzhou Medical University, Wenzhou, China.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  2. 02
    Hufendiek K2 papers · 2020

    Medizinische Hochschule Hannover, Universitätsklinik für Augenheilkunde, Carl-Neuberg-Straße 1, 30625 Hannover, Germany.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  3. 03
    Menchini U2 papers · 2012
    Papers in Europe PMC
  4. 04
    Murro V2 papers · 2012
    Papers in Europe PMC
  5. 05
    Passerini I2 papers · 2012
    Papers in Europe PMC
  6. 06
    Sodi A2 papers · 2012

    Department of Specialized Surgical Sciences, Eye Clinic, University of Florence, Italy.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  7. 07
    Tawfik CA2 papers · 2025

    Ocular Genetics Service, Al Mashreq Eye Center, Cairo, Egypt.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  8. 08
    Torricelli F2 papers · 2012
    Papers in Europe PMC
  9. 09
    Tsang SH2 papers · 2023

    Edward S. Harkness Eye Institute, Department of Ophthalmology, Columbia University Medical Center, New York, NY, United States.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  10. 10
    Wang J2 papers · 2022

    Department of Ophthalmology, Peking Union Medical College Hospital, Peking Union Medical College and Chinese Academy of Medical Science, Beijing, 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 MRCS 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.

("MRCS syndrome" OR "Microcornea-rod-cone dystrophy-cataract-posterior staphyloma syndrome") OR ("MRCS" OR "MRCS-related")

Run this search on Europe PMC

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

"MRCS syndrome" OR "Microcornea-rod-cone dystrophy-cataract-posterior staphyloma syndrome"

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 short or not clearly distinctive
  • No synonyms dropped by stoplist
  • No label/synonym collisions with other diseases in this corpus
  • Publication count (8252) is implausibly high for prevalence class "<1 / 1 000 000" — treat as possible over-matching, not a measure of research intensity

Ingested 2026-07-27T11:19:49.609Z