Same Name Campaign

Same disease—different names

  • From the middle of the 1960s, a few doctors and researchers in different specialties and from different parts of the world reported about people with particular groups of symptoms. Each gave a different name to the group of symptoms, known as syndromes.

  • For example:
    • Dr. Angelo DiGeorge, a pediatric endocrinologist (a specialist in hormone problems in children), described individuals who had had heart defects, problems with low calcium, multiple infections, and abnormalities of the palate. The condition was named after him: “DiGeorge Syndrome”.
    • Robert Shprintzen, a speech pathologist, described individuals who had palate problems (“velo”), heart defects (“cardio”), a characteristic facial appearance (“facial”) as well as learning difficulties. He named the disease “velocardiofacial syndrome” (VCFS for short).
  • Each specialist was accurate in describing the individuals’ symptoms in his or her own area of interest, but no one was able to give a unifying explanation for the cause of all these features.
  • Some of the names used in the past hve tended to cause confusion. These include (source: 22q11.2 Deletion Syndrome - Medlineplus.gov):
    • Autosomal dominant Opitz G/BBB syndrome
    • CATCH22
    • Cayler cardiofacial syndrome
    • Conotruncal anomaly face syndrome (CTAF)
    • Deletion 22q11.2 syndrome
    • DiGeorge syndrome
    • Sedlackova syndrome
    • Shprintzen syndrome
    • VCFS
    • Velocardiofacial syndrome
    • Velo-cardio-facial syndrome
  • In the early 1990s, Dr. Deborah Driscoll and her team found that the people with syndromes had the same deletions in the q11.2 region of their chromosome 22.
  • Researchers have gathered enough evidence to confirm that the deletions in 22q11.2 are the cause of this collection of syndromes.
  • Now that they have found the unifying cause, researchers are encouraging everyone (individuals with the syndrome, their family members, medical professionals) to use the name

    22q11.2 Deletion Syndrome

    instead of the multiple descriptive but outdated names. This is the basis for the “Same Name Campaign.”
same name campaign

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Pass on the information

Here are some ways to tell others about the official name: 22q11.2DS.

  • Tell them about this website: www.22q.ca

  • Tell them about the website for the International 22q Foundation: www.22q.org

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