Ataxia telangiectasia historical perspective

Please help WikiDoc by adding content here. It’s easy! Click here to learn about editing.

Historical Perspective

The term Ataxia-Telangiectasia was initially advanced by Boder and Sedgwick in 1957,in which described eight patients with classical A-T, while in 1958 Centerwall and Miller entitled it Louis-Bar syndrome which relates to Madame Louis-Bar, a Belgian neurologist who published a case report of a 9 year-old boy with cutaneous telangiectasia and progressive cerebellar ataxia. She initially classified this new disease in the group of phacomatosis PPV. In 1993, a case report was published about a 17 year-old boy with cerebellar araxia concomitant dystonia, myoclonus, pyramidal signs, pulmonary infection, persistent lymphopenia, immunoglobulin deficiency and rising alpha-fetoprotein, termed as ataxia with immune deficiency.^[1] In 1995, the responsible gene for A-T(ATM) was identified by Savitsky et al. In 2001, Stewart found a correlation with ATM kinase activity levels in cells and the degree of neurological symptoms in A-T patients.^[2]