RARE DISEASERESEARCH ATLAS

ORPHA:79253

Mild phenylketonuria

medium confidenceSubtype of disorder

Also known as: Mild PKU · Variant PKU · Variant phenylketonuria · mPKU

Publications

489

84.4th percentile

Trials

1

Interventional, condition-specific

Researchers

1,255

Distinct authors in sample

Gene link

Readiness

2/6

Stages with a signal

Orphanet entry

Cross-references

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

Additional Mondo synonyms (3)

mild PKU · variant PKU · variant phenylketonuria

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

    489 matched papers (292 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

    1 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)

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?

489

489 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.

489 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).

292 in the last 10 years · medium confidence · 84.4th percentile (publications denominator)

Phrase hits: 489 · MeSH hits: 0

Open Europe PMC search

Who's working on it?

1,255

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
    MacDonald A23 papers · 2026

    Birmingham Women's and Children's Hospital, Birmingham B4 6NH, UK.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  2. 02
    Pinto A19 papers · 2026

    Birmingham Women's and Children's Hospital, Birmingham B4 6NH, UK.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  3. 03
    Daly A17 papers · 2026

    Birmingham Women's and Children's Hospital, Birmingham B4 6NH, UK.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  4. 04
    Rocha JC17 papers · 2026

    Centro de Genética Médica, Centro Hospitalar Universitário do Porto (CHUP), 4099-028 Porto, Portugal.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  5. 05
    Evans S16 papers · 2026

    Birmingham Women's and Children's Hospital, Birmingham B4 6NH, UK.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  6. 06
    Ashmore C15 papers · 2026

    Birmingham Women's and Children's Hospital, Birmingham B4 6NH, UK.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  7. 07
    Blau N10 papers · 2026

    Dietmar-Hopp Metabolic Center, University Children's Hospital, Heidelberg, Germany.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  8. 08
    Feillet F8 papers · 2024

    Department of Pediatrics, Hôpital d'Enfants Brabois, CHU Nancy, Vandoeuvre les Nancy, France.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  9. 09
    Levy HL8 papers · 2023

    Division of Genetics and Genomics, Boston Children's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  10. 10
    Rohr F8 papers · 2024

    Division of Genetics and Genomics, Boston Children's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA.

    Papers in Europe PMC

Clinical research

Is a treatment being tested?

1

interventional trials for this specific condition

1 interventional trial matched this specific condition name; none in our sample are currently recruiting. 91 trials are registered for phenylketonuria, the broader category — shown separately because they may or may not enrol this specific subtype.

Data as of 27 July 2026

1 interventional trial — more than 73% of diseases in the trials denominator have none at all (5114 of 7003; this disease is at the 76.8th percentile).

medium confidence · 76.8th percentile (trials denominator)

Recruiting interventional trials

From the matched ClinicalTrials.gov set

1 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.

Broader category: phenylketonuria

91

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

Observational and natural-history studies

1 observational study matches 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

Likely covered — the policy lists Phenylketonuria (PKU) as a category (Group 2), and this condition is a form of it. Confirm eligibility with a Centre of Excellence.

Group 2 — long-term / lifelong lower-cost interventions

NPRD envisages State Government support for dietary formulae, hormones, and other lower-cost interventions. This is a different route from the central CoE ₹50 lakh pathway; ask your state health department and a CoE which channel applies.

Central CoE funding may also apply depending on current rules — confirm with a notified Centre of Excellence. Do not assume the ₹50 lakh ceiling covers Group 2 by default. Verify

Centres of Excellence (15)
  • All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS)New Delhi, Delhi
  • Maulana Azad Medical CollegeNew Delhi, Delhi
  • Sanjay Gandhi Post Graduate Institute of Medical SciencesLucknow, Uttar Pradesh
  • Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research (PGIMER)Chandigarh, Chandigarh
  • Centre for DNA Fingerprinting & Diagnostics with Nizam’s Institute of Medical SciencesHyderabad, Telangana
  • King Edward Memorial HospitalMumbai, Maharashtra
  • Institute of Post-Graduate Medical Education and Research (IPGMER)Kolkata, West Bengal
  • Centre for Human Genetics with Indira Gandhi HospitalBengaluru, Karnataka
  • Institute of Child Health and Hospital for Children (ICH & HC)Chennai, Tamil Nadu
  • All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS)Jodhpur, Rajasthan
  • Sree Avittam Thirunal Hospital (SAT), Government Medical CollegeThiruvananthapuram, Kerala
  • All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS)Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh
  • Regional Institute of Medical Sciences (RIMS)Imphal, Manipur
  • All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS)Patna, Bihar
  • Assam Medical College & HospitalDibrugarh, Assam

Voluntary contributions / crowdfunding (separate from CoE funding): https://rarediseases.mohfw.gov.in/

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.

"Mild phenylketonuria" OR "Mild PKU" OR "Variant PKU" OR "Variant phenylketonuria"

Run this search on Europe PMC

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

"Mild phenylketonuria" OR "Mild PKU" OR "Variant PKU" OR "Variant phenylketonuria"

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: 1 interventional · 1 observational · 0 expanded access. Only interventional studies enter the trial headline.

Parent-category trials query:

"phenylketonuria"

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

Run this search on ClinicalTrials.gov

Synonyms dropped by stoplist: mPKU

Confidence reasoning

  • Preferred label is multi-word and distinctive
  • 1 synonym(s) dropped by stoplist (may under-count)
  • No label/synonym collisions with other diseases in this corpus

Ingested 2026-07-27T02:08:10.604Z