RARE DISEASERESEARCH ATLAS

ORPHA:466794

Acute infantile liver failure-cerebellar ataxia-peripheral sensory motor neuropathy syndrome

high confidenceDisorder

Also known as: Autosomal recessive spinocerebellar ataxia type 21 · SCAR21

Query health: suspect — Only one of 2 strategies returned hits (phrase).

Publications

48

49.6th percentile

Trials

0

Interventional, condition-specific

Researchers

363

Distinct authors in sample

Gene link

SCYL1

Definitive

Readiness

2/6

Stages with a signal

Clinical definition (Orphanet)

A rare axonal motor and sensory characterized by onset of recurrent episodes of acute liver failure (resulting in chronic liver fibrosis and ), delayed motor development, cerebellar dysfunction presenting as gait disturbances and intention tremor, neurogenic stuttering, and motor and sensory with muscle weakness especially in the lower legs, and numbness. Mild was reported in some patients. MRI of the brain shows non- atrophy of the cerebellar vermis and thinning of the optic nerve.

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 (4)

acute infantile liver failure-cerebellar ataxia-peripheral sensory motor neuropathy syndrome · autosomal recessive spinocerebellar ataxia type 21 · spinocerebellar ataxia, autosomal recessive 21 · spinocerebellar ataxia, autosomal recessive type 21

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

No matched interventional trial; the gene is known and literature exists — preclinical or natural-history work may still be the practical next step.

  1. Gene identifiedPresent

    Definitive — SCYL1

  2. LiteraturePresent

    48 matched papers (40 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 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?

Yes — we know a specific gene responsible (SCYL1).

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?

48

48 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.

48 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).

40 in the last 10 years · high confidence · 49.6th percentile (publications denominator)

Phrase hits: 48 · MeSH hits: 0

Open Europe PMC search

Who's working on it?

363

Distinct author names in 48 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
    Zhang H3 papers · 2022

    Department of Neurosurgery, West China Hospital, Sichuan University, Chengdu, Sichuan Province, China.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  2. 02
    Beaudin M2 papers · 2019

    Axe Neurosciences, CHU de Québec-Université Laval, Québec, QC, Canada.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  3. 03
    Li Y2 papers · 2025

    Key Laboratory of Neuroregeneration of Jiangsu and Ministry of Education, Co-Innovation Center of Neuroregeneration, Nantong University, Nantong, China.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  4. 04
    Liu M2 papers · 2019

    Key Laboratory of Neuroregeneration of Jiangsu and Ministry of Education, Co-Innovation Center of Neuroregeneration, Nantong University, Nantong, China.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  5. 05
    Rouleau GA2 papers · 2019

    McGill University, Montreal, QC, Canada.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  6. 06
    Abdulwahab F1 paper · 2023

    Department of Translational Genomics, Center for Genomic Medicine, King Faisal Specialist Hospital and Research Center, MBC-26, PO Box 3354, Riyadh, 11211, Saudi Arabia.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  7. 07
    Abou-Zeid AA1 paper · 2008
    Papers in Europe PMC
  8. 08
    Abouelhoda M1 paper · 2023

    Department of Computational Science, Center for Genomic Medicine, King Faisal Specialist Hospital and Research Center, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. mabouelhoda@kfshrc.edu.sa.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  9. 09
    Abuyousef O1 paper · 2023

    Department of Translational Genomics, Center for Genomic Medicine, King Faisal Specialist Hospital and Research Center, MBC-26, PO Box 3354, Riyadh, 11211, Saudi Arabia.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  10. 10
    Adamu Y1 paper · 2023

    Department of Anesthesiology, College of Health Sciences and Medicine, Dilla University, Dilla, Ethiopia.

    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 27 July 2026

No matched interventional trials. This is true for 73% of diseases in the trials denominator (5114 of 7003). Here are the researchers publishing on it.

high confidence · 36.5th 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.

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.

"Acute infantile liver failure-cerebellar ataxia-peripheral sensory motor neuropathy syndrome" OR "Autosomal recessive spinocerebellar ataxia type 21" OR "SCAR21" OR "spinocerebellar ataxia, autosomal recessive 21" OR "spinocerebellar ataxia, autosomal recessive type 21"

Run this search on Europe PMC

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

"Acute infantile liver failure-cerebellar ataxia-peripheral sensory motor neuropathy syndrome" OR "Autosomal recessive spinocerebellar ataxia type 21" OR "SCAR21" OR "spinocerebellar ataxia, autosomal recessive 21" OR "spinocerebellar ataxia, autosomal recessive type 21" OR "SCYL1"

Recall-expansion terms: SCYL1

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

Query health: suspect — strategies attempted: phrase, recall-expansion; 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 2026-07-27T17:02:03.787Z