A male infant with multiple congenital anomalies was found to have a deletion of 7q [46,XY,del(7)(pter----q11.2::q22----qter)]. The father had a balanced rearrangement involving chromosomes 7 and 9, interpreted as 46,XY,dir ins(9;7), (9pter----9p12::7q22----7q11.2::9p12----++ +9qter;7pter---- 7q11.2::7q22----7qter). C-banding showed that the rearrangement occurred as a new event in the paternal grandfather's germ-line. Including the present patient, 16 cases of proximal 7q deletion (q11----q21/q22) have been described to date. This is a sufficient number of cases to permit comparison of manifestations to attempt delineation of karyotype-phenotype relationships in different proximal interstitial deletions of 7q.