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ORPHA:85172

Microcephalic osteodysplastic dysplasia, Saul-Wilson type

low confidenceDisorder

Publications

555

Trials

0

Interventional, condition-specific

Researchers

465

Distinct authors in sample

Gene link

COG4

Definitive

Readiness

4/6

Stages with a signal

Clinical definition (Orphanet)

Microcephalic osteodysplastic , Saul-Wilson type is a skeletal characterized by a distinct facial , short stature, brachydactyly, clubfoot deformities, cataracts, and microcephaly. It has been described in four patients. Facial features include frontal bossing with a depression over the metopic suture, a narrow nasal root with a beaked nose, and midfacial hypoplasia with prominent eyes. Characteristic radiographic findings are observed (irregularities of the vertebral bodies, hypoplasia of the odontoid process, short phalanges, coning several epiphyses etc.).

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)

SWILS · Saul-Wilson syndrome · microcephalic osteodysplastic dysplasia · microcephalic osteodysplastic dysplasia, Saul-Wilson type

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 matched interventional trial, but a gene association and an animal model are on record — often described as translation-ready / stalled at the clinical step.

  1. Gene identifiedPresent

    Definitive — COG4

  2. LiteraturePresent

    555 matched papers (387 in last 10 years) Source

  3. Phenotype characterisedPresent

    56 HPO annotations (e.g. Flared metaphysis; Nyctalopia; Hearing impairment) Source

  4. Animal modelPresent

    2 genotype models (Danio rerio) Source

  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?

Yes — we know a specific gene responsible (COG4).

GenCC classification: Definitive.

Phenotypes (Monarch / HPO)

56

Associated phenotypes · MONDO:0019407

  • Flared metaphysis
  • Nyctalopia
  • Hearing impairment
  • Hypoplasia of the odontoid process
  • Syringomyelia

Showing 5 of 56 — open Monarch for the full list.

Animal models (Monarch / Alliance)

2

Model associations linked to this Mondo ID

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?

555

555 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.

555 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).

387 in the last 10 years · low confidence

Phrase hits: 78 · MeSH hits: 0

Open Europe PMC search

Who's working on it?

465

Distinct author names in 78 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
    Freeze HH10 papers · 2026

    Human Genetics Program, Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute, La Jolla, CA 92037, USA.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  2. 02
    Ng BG8 papers · 2024

    Human Genetics Program, Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute, La Jolla, CA 92037, USA.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  3. 03
    Ferreira CR6 papers · 2026

    Skeletal Genomics Unit, Metabolic Medicine Branch, National Human Genome Research Institute, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland, USA.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  4. 04
    Xia ZJ5 papers · 2023

    Human Genetics Program, Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute, La Jolla, CA, United States.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  5. 05
    Jaeken J4 papers · 2023

    Department of Development and Regeneration, Center for Metabolic Diseases, University Hospital Gasthuisberg, KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  6. 06
    Nishimura G4 papers · 2023

    Department of Radiology, Musashino-Yowakai Hospital, Tokyo, Japan.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  7. 07
    Wegiel J4 papers · 2014

    Department of Developmental Neurobiology, NYS Institute for Basic Research in Developmental Disabilities, 1050 Forest Hill Road, Staten Island, NY 10314, USA. jerzy.wegiel@opwdd.ny.gov.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  8. 08
    Bober MB3 papers · 2020

    Division of Orthogenetics, A.I. duPont Hospital for Children, Wilmington, DE, 19803, USA.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  9. 09
    Duker AL3 papers · 2020

    Division of Orthogenetics, A.I. duPont Hospital for Children, Wilmington, DE, 19803, USA.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  10. 10
    Gahl WA3 papers · 2022

    Office of the Clinical Director, National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI), NIH, Bethesda, Maryland, USA.

    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. 1 observational study did — shown below because natural-history and cohort work can be an important step toward a trial.

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.

See who's working on it — people publishing on this disease are often the practical next contact when no trial is listed.

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.

Recruiting or not-yet-recruiting

Open the complete matched 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 2026-07-30

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 Microcephalic osteodysplastic dysplasia, Saul-Wilson type — 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.

("Microcephalic osteodysplastic dysplasia, Saul-Wilson type" OR "SWILS" OR "Saul-Wilson syndrome" OR "microcephalic osteodysplastic dysplasia") OR ("COG4" OR "COG4 syndrome" OR "COG4-related")

Run this search on Europe PMC

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

"Microcephalic osteodysplastic dysplasia, Saul-Wilson type" OR "SWILS" OR "Saul-Wilson syndrome" OR "microcephalic osteodysplastic dysplasia"

Study-type breakdown: 0 interventional · 1 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
  • Publication count (555) is implausibly high for prevalence class "<1 / 1 000 000" — treat as possible over-matching, not a measure of research intensity

Ingested 2026-07-27T02:46:49.749Z