Nationwide Study of Turner Syndrome in Ukrainian Children: Prevalence, Genetic Variants and Phenotypic Features

OBJECTIVE: We aimed to investigate the prevalence of Turner syndrome (TS) in the Ukrainian population, the frequency of karyotype variants, the age of children at diagnosis, the degree of short stature and phenotypic features in TS girls. METHODS: A retrospective analysis was made in 538 TS girls aged 0.11-18.2 years within the time period of 2005-2015 with detailed examination of 150 patients. RESULTS: The prevalence of TS in Ukraine is 77.5 in 100.000 live female births. The average age at diagnosis is 9.33±4.93 years. The relative proportions of karyotypic abnormalities found were: 45,X (59.3%); mosaicism 45,X/46,XX (22.9%); and structural abnormalities in chromosome X (17.8%). The most frequently encountered findings were growth delay (98.8%), shortening of the 4(th) and 5(th) metacarpal bones (74.6%), abnormal nails (73.3%), broad chest (60.7%), short neck (58.6%), hypertelorism of nipples (51.4%), malformations of the cardiovascular (19.6%) and urinary systems (13.8%) and pathology related to vision (20.1%) and hearing (22.0%). CONCLUSION: In the Ukrainian population, the highest proportion of patients with TS had a karyotype 45,X. TS was accompanied by a lower frequency of malformations of internal organs compared to other countries.