BILATERAL CATARACT AND HIGH SERUM FERRITIN - A NEW DOMINANT GENETIC DISORDER

This paper reports the cosegregation in a three generation pedigree of dominantly inherited cataract with an abnormally high level of serum ferritin. In this family, circulating L ferritin was raised in all sub jects affected by cataract independently of iron overload. We suggest that a disorder of ferritin metabolism could be a new genetic disorder leading to lens opacity. Cataract-hyperferritaemia syndrome could als o be a new contiguous gene syndrome involving the L ferritin gene and the gene coding for the lens membrane protein (MP19), which both map t o the same region of chromosome 19q.