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ORPHA:268861

Primary tethered cord syndrome

low confidenceDisorder

Also known as: Primary tethered spinal cord syndrome

Publications

1,640

Trials

6

Interventional, condition-specific

Researchers

1,083

Distinct authors in sample

Gene link

—

Readiness

2/6

Stages with a signal

Clinical definition (Orphanet)

Primary tethered cord syndrome is a genetic, non-syndromic of the neurenteric canal, spinal cord and column characterized by neurologic deterioration (pain, sensorimotor deficits, abnormal gait, decreased tone or abnormal reflexes), musculoskeletal changes (foot deformities and asymmetry, muscle atrophy, limb weakness and numbness, gait disturbances, scoliosis) and/or genitourinary manifestations (bladder and bowel dysfunction). Midline cutaneous stigmata in the lumbosacral region, such as turfs of hair, skin appendages, dimples, subcutaneous lipomas, skin discoloration or hemangiomas, are frequently associated.

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 (2)

Tethered Cord Syndrome · primary tethered spinal cord 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

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

  1. Gene identifiedNot found

    No GenCC disease–gene assertion in this build

  2. LiteraturePresent

    1,640 matched papers (965 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

    6 matched on ClinicalTrials.gov (3 recruiting in sample)

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)

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?

1,640

1,640 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.

1,640 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).

965 in the last 10 years · low confidence

Phrase hits: 1,640 · MeSH hits: 0

Open Europe PMC search

Who's working on it?

1,083

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
    Wang Y7 papers · 2026

    Department of Pediatric Intensive Care Unit, Shandong Provincial Hospital Affiliated to Shandong First Medical University, Jinan, Shandong Province, 250021, People's Republic of China.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  2. 02
    Zhang L6 papers · 2026

    Department of Medical Equipment Department, Children's Hospital, Zhejiang University School of Medicine, Hangzhou, 310057.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  3. 03
    Klinge PM5 papers · 2025

    Department of Neurosurgery, Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University, APC Building 6Th Floor, 593 Eddy St, Providence, RI, 02903, USA.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  4. 04
    Wang H5 papers · 2026

    Department of Orthopedics, General Hospital of Northern Theater Command, Shenyang, China.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  5. 05
    Wang Z5 papers · 2026

    Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, The Third Hospital of Hebei Medical University, Shijiazhuang, Hebei, China; Department of Graduate School, Hebei Medical University, Shijiazhuang, Hebei, China.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  6. 06
    Yang Y5 papers · 2026

    Department of Neurosurgery, Xuanwu Hospital, Capital Medical University, Beijing 100053, China.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  7. 07
    He K4 papers · 2026

    1Department of Neurosurgery, Peking University China-Japan Friendship School of Clinical Medicine, Beijing.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  8. 08
    Liu S4 papers · 2026

    4Department of Intensive Care Unit, Beijing Mentougou District Hospital, Beijing, China.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  9. 09
    Liu Z4 papers · 2026

    3Department of Neurosurgery, Xuanwu Hospital, Capital Medical University, Beijing; and.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  10. 10
    Wang K4 papers · 2026

    3Department of Neurosurgery, Xuanwu Hospital, Capital Medical University, Beijing; and.

    Papers in Europe PMC

Clinical research

Is a treatment being tested?

6

interventional trials for this specific condition

6 interventional trials matched this specific condition name; 3 currently recruiting in our sample.

Data as of 27 July 2026

6 interventional trials — more than 73% of diseases in the trials denominator have none at all (5114 of 7003; this disease is at the 89th percentile).

low confidence · 89th percentile (trials denominator)

Recruiting interventional trials

From the matched ClinicalTrials.gov set

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

Observational and natural-history studies

3 observational studies match this condition. These do not test a treatment and are not counted in the interventional-trial headline, but they are genuine research: natural-history work often defines the endpoints needed for a future rare-disease trial, and families may be able to enroll.

None of the matched observational studies is currently listed as recruiting.

Open the complete matched 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.

"Primary tethered cord syndrome" OR "Primary tethered spinal cord syndrome" OR "Tethered Cord Syndrome"

Run this search on Europe PMC

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

"Primary tethered cord syndrome" OR "Primary tethered spinal cord syndrome" OR "Tethered Cord Syndrome"

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: 6 interventional · 3 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
  • Publication count (1640) is extremely high with unknown/missing prevalence — treat as possible over-matching, not proven research intensity

Ingested 2026-07-27T11:30:52.799Z