Arterial tortuosity syndrome (ATS) is a rare, autosomal recessively inherited connective tissue disorder characterized by severe and widespread arterial tortuosity of the aorta and of middle-sized arteries with an increased risk of aneurysm, dissection, and stenosis involving either the aorta or the pulmonary arteries or both. In this article, we report the clinical findings and molecular chara...

A 57-year-old woman presented with periorbital ecchymoses, laxity in skin folds, polyneuropathy and bilateral carpal tunnel syndrome. A skin biopsy of the axillary lesion demonstrated fragmentation of elastic fibers, but with a negative von Kossa stain, consistent with cutis laxa. The diagnosis of primary systemic amyloidosis was made by the presence of amyloid material in the eyelid using hist...

In 2005, Kreidstein first proposed the term "Cutis pleonasmus," a Greek term meaning "redundancy," which refers to the excessive skin that remains after massive weight loss. Cutis pleonasmus is clearly distinguishable from other diseases showing increased laxity of the skin, such as pseudoxanthoma elasticum, congenital and acquired generalized cutis laxa. Although individuals who are severely o...

Characteristics suggestive of connective tissue dysfunction have been described in Sotos syndrome and include joint hyperextensibility, pes planus, and a high arched palate. A variety of cutis laxa syndromes have also been described, some of them exhibiting mental retardation, but no reports have drawn an association with overgrowth or abnormal facies characteristic of Sotos syndrome. We report...

Costello syndrome is emerging as a better delineated condition and should be included in the differential diagnosis of cutis laxa in association with postnatal growth retardation and developmental delay. We present a further case of Costello syndrome which illustrates the natural history of this condition.

Skin fibroblasts from two cases of autosomal recessive cutis laxa (CL), having insignificant elastin production and mRNA levels, were challenged with transforming growth factor beta-i (TGF-fi1). Elastin production was brought from undetectable values to amounts typical of normal human skin fibroblasts in a dose-dependent fashion. Basic fibroblast growth factor (100 ng/ml) alone or in combinatio...

Marshall's syndrome is a form of acquired cutis laxa without systemic involvement, which is preceded by an inflammatory dermatitis with a neutrophilic component. We report a case of a 6-year-old boy with clinical and histopathological features of this syndrome. The etiology remains unknown and there is no definitive treatment.