A Case of Birt-Hogg-Dubé (BHD) Syndrome Harboring a Novel Folliculin (FLCN) Gene Mutation
Challenging differential diagnosis, Rare disease, Educational Purpose (only if useful for a systematic review or synthesis)
Takuro Yukawa, Takuya Fukazawa, Masakazu Yoshida, Ichiro Morita, Katsuya Kato, Yasumasa Monobe, Mitsuko Furuya, Yoshio Naomoto
(Department of General Surgery, Kawasaki Medical School, Okayama, Japan)
Am J Case Rep 2016; 17:788-792
DOI: 10.12659/AJCR.899407
Published: 2016-10-26
BACKGROUND:
Birt-Hogg-Dubé (BHD) syndrome is an autosomal dominant disorder clinically characterized by pulmonary cysts, spontaneous pneumothorax, renal cell cancer, and skin fibrofolliculomas. The disorder is caused by germline mutations in the FLCN gene.
CASE REPORT:
A 56-year-old female was admitted to our hospital with a diagnosis of bilateral spontaneous pneumothorax. A computed tomography (CT) scan of the chest revealed bilateral multiple bullae predominantly located in the subpleural and mediastinal areas in the bilateral upper and lower lobes. Although she was cured by thoracic cavity drainage, she underwent resection of bilateral lung bullae because she had a prior history of right pneumothorax at 37- and 45-years of age. She had no signs of renal tumor but had fibrofolliculoma in her face and a family history of pneumothorax, we therefore suspected BHD syndrome. DNA sequence analyses determined that there was a two base pair deletion in exon 4 of the FLCN gene, confirming the diagnosis of BHD syndrome.
CONCLUSIONS:
Here we report a case of BHD syndrome with a previously unreported FLCN mutation.
Keywords: Birt-Hogg-Dube Syndrome, Carcinoma, Renal Cell, Pneumothorax
