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ORPHA:447974

Klippel-Feil anomaly-myopathy-facial dysmorphism syndrome

low confidenceDisorder

Publications

837

Trials

0

Interventional, condition-specific

Researchers

31

Distinct authors in sample

Gene link

MYO18B

Definitive

Readiness

4/6

Stages with a signal

Clinical definition (Orphanet)

A rare genetic disease characterized by the association of Klippel-Feil anomaly (fusion of the cervical spine), , , short stature, microcephaly, and facial dysmorphism (including low-set ears, bulbous nose, long philtrum, high-arched palate, and low posterior hairline, among others). Cardiac abnormalities and various skeletal anomalies (such as pectus excavatum or clinodactyly) have also been reported.

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.

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.”

4/6 stages with a signal

No specific-condition interventional trial, but broader-category trials exist — discuss eligibility with a clinician.

  1. Gene identifiedPresent

    Definitive — MYO18B

  2. LiteraturePresent

    837 matched papers (543 in last 10 years) Source

  3. Phenotype characterisedPresent

    24 HPO annotations (e.g. Low-set ears; Cervical C2/C3 vertebral fusion; Narrow forehead) 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 trialPartial

    None under the specific name; 182 for broader category myopathy

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 (MYO18B).

GenCC classification: Definitive.

Phenotypes (Monarch / HPO)

24

Associated phenotypes · MONDO:0014689

  • Low-set ears
  • Cervical C2/C3 vertebral fusion
  • Narrow forehead
  • Short stature
  • Myopathy

Showing 5 of 24 — 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)

No CTD chemical associations returned for this Mondo ID.

Literature

Is anyone studying this?

837

837 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=3967) is 59.

837 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).

543 in the last 10 years · low confidence

Phrase hits: 1 · MeSH hits: 0

Open Europe PMC search

Who's working on it?

31

Distinct author names in 1 sampled paper — 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
    Abdelmoneim Elnagheeb M1 paper · 2025

    Department of Genetics, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, USA.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  2. 02
    Beggs AH1 paper · 2025

    Division of Genetics and Genomics, The Manton Center for Orphan Disease Research, Boston Children's Hospital, and Department of Pediatrics, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  3. 03
    Bertini E1 paper · 2025

    Unit of Neuromuscular and Neurodegenerative Disorders, Bambino Gesù Children's Hospital, IRCCS, Rome, Italy.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  4. 04
    Bönnemann CG1 paper · 2025

    Neuromuscular and Neurogenetic Disorders of Childhood Section, NIH, National Institute of Neurological Disorders, Bethesda, USA.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  5. 05
    Ceyhan-Birsoy O1 paper · 2025

    Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York, NY, USA.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  6. 06
    D'Amico A1 paper · 2025

    Unit of Neuromuscular and Neurodegenerative Disorders, Bambino Gesù Children's Hospital, IRCCS, Rome, Italy.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  7. 07
    Donkervoort S1 paper · 2025

    Neuromuscular and Neurogenetic Disorders of Childhood Section, NIH, National Institute of Neurological Disorders, Bethesda, USA.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  8. 08
    Dowling J1 paper · 2025

    Division of Neurology, Program for Genetics and Genome Biology, Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, Canada.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  9. 09
    Eng L1 paper · 2025

    Department of Genetics, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, USA.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  10. 10
    Fattori F1 paper · 2025

    Unit of Neuromuscular and Neurodegenerative Disorders, Bambino Gesù Children's Hospital, IRCCS, Rome, Italy.

    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). 182 trials are registered for myopathy, the broader category — shown separately because they may or may not enrol this specific subtype.

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.

182 interventional trials matched myopathy, the broader category — listed below. Those studies are not counted in the condition-specific total.

Broader category: myopathy

182

Interventional trials for the parent category, exclusive of NCT IDs already counted above. Eligibility for this subtype is not guaranteed.

Worth raising with a clinician. How we count trials.

Recruiting under the broader category

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 Klippel-Feil anomaly-myopathy-facial dysmorphism 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.

("Klippel-Feil anomaly-myopathy-facial dysmorphism syndrome") OR ("MYO18B" OR "MYO18B syndrome" OR "MYO18B-related")

Run this search on Europe PMC

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

"Klippel-Feil anomaly-myopathy-facial dysmorphism syndrome"

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

Parent-category trials query:

"myopathy"

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 (837) is implausibly high for prevalence class "<1 / 1 000 000" — treat as possible over-matching, not a measure of research intensity

Ingested 2026-07-27T16:34:32.529Z