Retinal and choroidal ischemic syndrome, digestive tract and renal small vessel hyalinosis, intracerebral calcifications and phenotypic abnormalities: a new family syndrome.

A new family syndrome is described that affected three of seven siblings and another patient who had been abandoned at birth but came from the same area of France. All four patients were young women with a very peculiar phenotype, poikiloderma and greying of the hair, and idiopathic non-arteriosclerotic cerebral calcifications. Pathological studies demonstrated small-vessel hyalinosis due to basal membrane thickening, mainly in the digestive tract, kidneys and calcified areas of the brain. The clinical and biological expressions of these vascular changes varied. Peripheral retinal ischemic syndrome and chorioretinal scars were found in the ocular fundi of three patients. Malabsorption and protein-losing enteropathy was the main problem in all four, and was the cause of one patient's death. A subarachnoid hemorrhage due to a right sylvian aneurysm also occurred in two of the three sisters and was lethal for one. Nephropathy with renal failure and systemic hypertension is the major problem of the two surviving patients.