Etiological Classification and Clinical Assessment of Children and Adolescents with Disorders of Sex Development

Objective: In 2006, the Lawson Wilkins Pediatric Endocrine Society (LWPES) and the European Society for Paediatric Endocrinology (ESPE) published a consensus statement on management of intersex disorders. The aim of our study was to determine the etiological distribution of disorders of sex development (DSD) according to the new DSD classification system and to evaluate the clinical features of DSDs in our patient cohort.
Methods: We retrospectively reviewed the records of patients followed up during the past three years. The subjects were divided into three etiologic groups according to their karyotypes. The definite diagnoses in each subgroup were established by clinical and laboratory investigations including abdominopelvic imaging as well as basal and stimulated hormone measurements. Molecular genetic testing, except for CYP21A2 gene, could not be performed.
Results: Out of a total of 95 patients, 26 had sex chromosome DSD, 45 had 46,XY DSD and 24 had 46,XX DSD. The most common causes of DSDs were Turner’s syndrome (TS), congenital adrenal hyperplasia (CAH) and androgen insensitivity syndrome (AIS). There was a wide variation in age of presentation ranging from 1 day to 17.5 years with a mean of 6.5±6.5 years. The most frequent complaints at presentation were ambiguous genitalia, isolated perineal hypospadias and short stature.
Conclusion: The results of our study demonstrate that the new DSD classification system leads to a major change in the distribution of etiological diagnoses of DSDs, which is exemplified by the significant frequencies of TS and vanishing testes syndrome. This alteration expands the clinical spectrum and increases the mean age at diagnosis. However, the most common causes of ambiguous genitalia, such as CAH and AIS, remain unchanged. Further studies using molecular genetic analyses are needed to give a more precise distribution of etiologies of DSDs, especially in 46,XY patients.