Beckwith-Wiedemann syndrome (BWS) is the most common epigenetic overgrowth disorder and presents with patients affected by a variety of clinical features. Although genotype-phenotype correlations have been demonstrated in BWS and although BWS has been reported to occur equally among racial and ethnic backgrounds, no study to date has evaluated the frequency of findings in different backgrounds. In this study, we evaluated the incidence of clinical features and molecular diagnoses among patients with BWS in Caucasian, Mixed, and non-Caucasian groups. These results suggest that clinical features and molecular diagnoses differ between race/ethnicity groups and raise the possibility of race and ethnicity effects on genotype-phenotype correlations in BWS.
Keywords: Beckwith-Wiedemann syndrome; diverse populations; imprinting; methylation; overgrowth; race.
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