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ORPHA:40366

Acitretin/etretinate embryopathy

high confidenceDisorder

Also known as: Fetal acitretin/etretinate syndrome · Retinoid embryopathy

Publications

34

33.4th percentile

Trials

0

Interventional, condition-specific

Researchers

129

Distinct authors in sample

Gene link

—

Readiness

2/6

Stages with a signal

Clinical definition (Orphanet)

A rare teratogenic disorder due to acitretin or etretinate exposure during the first trimester of pregnancy, carrying a risk of fetal malformations of approximately 20%, including central nervous system, craniofacial, ear, thymic, cardiac and limb anomalies.

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 (3)

fetal acitretin/etretinate syndrome · foetal acitretin/etretinate syndrome · retinoid embryopathy

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

    34 matched papers (16 in last 10 years) Source

  3. Phenotype characterisedPresent

    26 HPO annotations (e.g. Microcephaly; Hypoplasia of the thymus; Abnormal facial shape) 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)

26

Associated phenotypes · MONDO:0018442

  • Microcephaly
  • Hypoplasia of the thymus
  • Abnormal facial shape
  • Hypoplastic nasal septum
  • Aplasia/Hypoplasia of the optic nerve

Showing 5 of 26 — open Monarch for the full list.

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)

1 associated chemical. Therapeutic evidence is listed first when present — not a treatment recommendation.

  • Acitretin · marker/mechanism

MyDisease.info · MONDO:0018442

Literature

Is anyone studying this?

34

34 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.

34 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).

16 in the last 10 years · high confidence · 33.4th percentile (publications denominator)

Phrase hits: 34 · MeSH hits: 0

Open Europe PMC search

Who's working on it?

129

Distinct author names in 34 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
    Melnik BC5 papers · 2023

    Department of Dermatology; Environmental Medicine and Health Theory; University of Osnabrück; Osnabrück, Germany.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  2. 02
    Hendrickx AG3 papers · 2000

    California Regional Primate Research Center, University of California, Davis 95616, USA.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  3. 03
    Barbieri JS2 papers · 2020

    Department of Dermatology, University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Electronic address: john.barbieri@uphs.upenn.edu.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  4. 04
    Han JY2 papers · 2025

    Korean Mothersafe Counselling Center, Pregnancy & Breastfeeding Medicines Information Center, Seoul, Korea.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  5. 05
    Hummler H2 papers · 2000
    Papers in Europe PMC
  6. 06
    Schaefer C2 papers · 2012

    Pharmakovigilanz- und Beratungszentrum für Embryonaltoxikologie (BBGes), Berlin Institute for Clinical Teratology and Drug Risk Assessment in Pregnancy, Spandauer Damm 130, Haus 10, 14050, Berlin, Germany. schaefer@embryotox.de

    Papers in Europe PMC
  7. 07
    Andrei S1 paper · 2023

    Department of Anesthesiology and Intensive Care I, 'Fundeni' Clinical Institute, 022328 Bucharest, Romania.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  8. 08
    Antoszewski B1 paper · 2015

    Plastic, Reconstructive and Aesthetic Surgery Clinic, Institute of Surgery, Medical University of Lodz, Lodz, Poland. Head of the Department: Bogusław Antoszewski MD, PhD, Prof. MUL.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  9. 09
    Bellia G1 paper · 2015

    Novartis Farma SpA, Origgio, Varese, Italy.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  10. 10
    Berlin M1 paper · 2012
    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 Acitretin/etretinate embryopathy — 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.

"Acitretin/etretinate embryopathy" OR "Fetal acitretin/etretinate syndrome" OR "Retinoid embryopathy" OR "foetal acitretin/etretinate syndrome"

Run this search on Europe PMC

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

"Acitretin/etretinate embryopathy" OR "Fetal acitretin/etretinate syndrome" OR "Retinoid embryopathy" OR "foetal acitretin/etretinate 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 multi-word and distinctive
  • No synonyms dropped by stoplist
  • No label/synonym collisions with other diseases in this corpus

Ingested 2026-07-27T00:03:37.588Z