The Report of Three Rare Cases of the Niemann-pick Disease in Birjand, South Khorasan, Eastern Iran

Niemann–Pick disease type C (NP-C) is a rare neurovisceral and irreversible disease leading to premature death and disabling neurological signs. This autosomal recessive disease with incidence rate of 1:120000 is caused by mutations in either the NPC1 or the NPC2 gene, which leads to accumulation of cholesterol in body tissues especially brain and progressive neurological symptoms. NP-C is characterized by nonspecific visceral, neurological and psychiatric manifestations in infants. The neurological involvement is typically proceeded by systemic signs (cholestatic jaundice in the neonatal period or isolated spleno-or hepatosplenomegaly in infancy or childhood).

Early detection of NPC is important so that therapy with miglustat can delay onset of neurological symptoms and prolong survival. We describe here three infants from Birjand, South Khorasan, eastern Iran in 2016 with splenomegaly and different neurological signs that diagnosis was confirmed by genetic study. In all of them, NPC-509 was pathologically increased. They also had an unreported homozygous mutation (c. 1415T>C, p.Leu472Pro) in exon 9 of the NPC1 gene. We found unreported homozygous mutation in NPC gene.

Knowing this mutation is significant to our people. Genotype-phenotype correlations for this specific mutation needs to be further studied.