Jasper's Syndrome: A New Condition Named After Newborn With Mystery Symptoms
It's not every day that doctors are so stumped by a patient's symptoms that they decide it's something new altogether.
But that's just what happened last Monday in the United Kingdom, at Newcastle's Victoria Royal Infirmary. After an emergency caesarian section delivery just 20 weeks into his mother's pregnancy, baby Jasper Holt has come into the world with a medical condition that doctors have never seen.
For now, they are calling the condition - which includes brain development problems, abnormally small jaws, conjoined kidneys, a cleft palate, brain cysts, and other issues - "Jasper's Syndome."
The emergency birth took place after a standard 20-week ultrasound revealed health problems that needed immediate attention. Soon after the birth, the 5 pound 2 ounce baby boy was rushed into surgery to reconstruct his lower abdomen. The next few days saw a rush of medical treatments.
"He came off the ventilator on Thursday and a scan that night showed he had cysts on his brain," said the boy's father, Jeffrey Holt, speaking with the North West Evening Mail. "He also had a bit of a setback on the same day and had to have a little bit of oxygen. Next week we will see the cleft palate team and he will have an MRI."
The mix of symptoms has left Jasper's doctors confused and his parents (including mother Gemma Moorby) distraught.
"We were told that Jasper had problems with his kidneys and brain," Holt said. "It was devastating. Days later we had to go to Newcastle. It has been a total nightmare. We were initially told the baby had a brain development problem called lissencephaly. Subsequent scans showed that wasn't the case and what was wrong was basically unknown."
Holt has said that doctors believe Jasper's Syndrome is some sort of chromosome issue, but Down's syndrome has been ruled out. Itcould be years of testing and analysis before the new syndrome is fully understood.