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  • Updated 08.11.2024
  • Released 11.19.2001
  • Expires For CME 08.11.2027

Norrie disease

Introduction

Overview

Norrie disease is a rare, congenital X-linked recessive disorder of the eyes, particularly the retina of affected males, resulting in congenital blindness or progressive visual loss through childhood. Mutations in the NDP (Norrin Cysteine knot growth factor protein coding) gene and absence of the NDP protein norrin are associated with a spectrum of diseases featuring altered retinal vasculature development. Additional complications of Norrie disease, the most severe form of NDP-related retinopathy, are sensorineural deafness, intellectual deficits, psychosis, or other behavioral problems. Information continues to be gained concerning the clinical variability, genetics, and pathogenetic mechanisms of this disease. Vitrectomy with or without lensectomy has benefited some patients.

Key points

• Norrie disease is a rare, congenital X-linked recessive disorder of the eyes, particularly the retina, of affected males, resulting in congenital blindness or progressive visual loss through childhood.

• Mutations in the NDP gene, of which there are likely more than 200 pathogenic variants, and an absence of the NDP protein norrin are associated with altered retinal vasculature development.

• Information continues to be gained concerning the phenotypic variability, genetics, and pathogenetic mechanisms of this disease.

• Additional complications are sensorineural deafness, seizures, intellectual deficits, autism, and psychosis or other behavioral problems. Other anomalies, particularly involving the CNS, have been reported.

• Vitrectomy with or without lensectomy has benefited some patients.

Historical note and terminology

In 1961, Warburg identified seven patients from seven generations of a Danish family as well as an additional 48 patients from nine families described in the literature; she suggested the name Norrie disease to reflect Norrie's earlier publication in 1933 (66; 112). The term “Episkopi blindness” derived from a study of a large Greek family (16 males in five generations) in Episkopi, Cyprus (104). Some early cases were labeled “pseudotumors” or “pseudoglioma,” but these are nonspecific terms reserved for conditions resembling retinoblastoma and are no longer considered appropriate diagnoses for this condition (70). Two conditions (persistent hyperplastic primary vitreous and familial exudative vitreoretinopathy) are part of the spectrum of NDP-related retinopathies, of which Norrie disease is the most severe. Berger and colleagues and Chen and colleagues isolated a candidate gene for Norrie disease (06; 15). In the following years, the NDP gene and a variety of mutations have been identified as causative (123; 73).

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