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ORPHA:50839

Cat-scratch disease

high confidenceDisorder

Also known as: Bartonellosis due to Bartonella henselae infection

Publications

5,180

89.8th percentile

Trials

2

Interventional, condition-specific

Researchers

1,005

Distinct authors in sample

Gene link

—

Readiness

3/6

Stages with a signal

Clinical definition (Orphanet)

Cat-scratch disease is a rare infectious disease, caused by the Gram-negative bacteria Bartonella henselae, that is transmitted to humans via a scratch or bite of an infected cat and that has a variable clinical presentation but that usually manifests with an erythematous papule at the site of inoculation followed by chronic regional lymphadenopathy. Clinical course is usually self-limiting but disseminated illness with high fever, , granulomatous osteolytic lesions, encephalitis, retinitis, and atypical pneumonia can also occur. Cat-scratch disease can atypically present as parinaud oculoglandular syndrome (unilateral conjunctivitis and preauricular lymphadenopathy).

How rare: 1-9 / 100 000 — about one to nine people per hundred thousand.

Orphanet entry

Cross-references

Joined from Mondo / Orphanet. MeSH labels may enter searches; UMLS / OMIM / NCIT are stored for reference.

Additional Mondo synonyms (3)

Cat-scratch fever · bartonellosis due to Bartonella henselae infection · benign lymphoreticulosis

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.”

3/6 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

    5,180 matched papers (1,690 in last 10 years) Source

  3. Phenotype characterisedPresent

    22 HPO annotations (e.g. Malaise; Retinal detachment; Elevated erythrocyte sedimentation rate) 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 trialPresent

    2 matched on ClinicalTrials.gov

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)

22

Associated phenotypes · MONDO:0005692

  • Malaise
  • Retinal detachment
  • Elevated erythrocyte sedimentation rate
  • Endocarditis
  • Fever

Showing 5 of 22 — 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?

5,180

5,180 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.

5,180 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).

1,690 in the last 10 years · high confidence · 89.8th percentile (publications denominator)

Phrase hits: 5,180 · MeSH hits: 78

Open Europe PMC search

Who's working on it?

1,005

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
    Giladi M6 papers · 2026

    The Gray Faculty of Medical and Health Sciences, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  2. 02
    Yakubovsky M6 papers · 2026

    The Gray Faculty of Medical and Health Sciences, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  3. 03
    Drummond MR5 papers · 2026

    Universidade Estadual de Campinas , Laboratório de Pesquisa Aplicada em Dermatologia e Bartoneloses , Campinas , São Paulo , Brazil.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  4. 04
    Velho PENF5 papers · 2026

    Universidade Estadual de Campinas , Laboratório de Pesquisa Aplicada em Dermatologia e Bartoneloses , Campinas , São Paulo , Brazil.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  5. 05
    Ephros M4 papers · 2026

    Rappaport Faculty of Medicine, Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa, Israel.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  6. 06
    Gadoth A4 papers · 2026

    The Gray Faculty of Medical and Health Sciences, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  7. 07
    Paran Y4 papers · 2026

    The Gray Faculty of Medical and Health Sciences, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  8. 08
    Yahav D4 papers · 2026

    The Gray Faculty of Medical and Health Sciences, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  9. 09
    Ben-Ami R3 papers · 2026

    Gray Faculty of Medical and Health Sciences, Tel Aviv University, Israel; Department of Infectious Diseases and Infection Control, Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center, Tel Aviv, Israel.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  10. 10
    Grisaru-Soen G3 papers · 2026

    Gray Faculty of Medical and Health Sciences, Tel Aviv University, Israel; Pediatric Infectious Diseases Unit, Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center, Dana Children's Hospital, Tel Aviv, Israel.

    Papers in Europe PMC

Clinical research

Is a treatment being tested?

2

interventional trials for this specific condition

2 interventional trials matched this specific condition name; none in our sample are currently recruiting.

Data as of 11 September 2026

2 interventional trials — more than 77.2% of diseases in the trials denominator have none at all (5501 of 7126; this disease is at the 84.5th percentile).

high confidence · 84.5th percentile (trials denominator)

Recruiting interventional trials

From the matched ClinicalTrials.gov set

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

No currently recruiting studies in the matched set. Open the same search on ClinicalTrials.gov.

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 Cat-scratch disease — 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.

"Cat-scratch disease" OR "Bartonellosis due to Bartonella henselae infection" OR "Cat-scratch fever" OR "benign lymphoreticulosis"

Run this search on Europe PMC

MeSH descriptor terms unioned into the query: Cat-Scratch Disease

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

"Cat-scratch disease" OR "Bartonellosis due to Bartonella henselae infection" OR "Cat-scratch fever" OR "benign lymphoreticulosis"

Interventional trials matched via: both (mesh = registered under a MeSH descriptor no name phrase would catch; recall-expansion = gene / selected parent terms used only for trials).

Study-type breakdown: 2 interventional · 0 observational · 0 expanded access. Only interventional studies enter the trial headline.

Query health: ok — strategies attempted: phrase, mesh; with hits: phrase, mesh

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 2026-07-27T00:20:02.468Z