You are here

Article Text

Article menu
Download PDFPDF
Electronic letters
Inositol and folate resistant neural tube defects
  1. P Cavalli1,
  2. A J Copp2
  1. 1Servizio di Genetica, Ospedale di Cremona, Via Concordia 1, 26100 Cremona, Italy
  2. 2Institute of Child Health, University College London, London WC1N 1EH, UK
  1. Correspondence to:
 Professor A Copp, Neural Development Unit, Institute of Child Health, 30 Guilford Street, London WC1N 1EH, UK;
 a.copp{at}ich.ucl.ac.uk

https://doi.org/10.1136/jmg.39.2.e5

Statistics from Altmetric.com

    Request Permissions

    If you wish to reuse any or all of this article please use the link below which will take you to the Copyright Clearance Center’s RightsLink service. You will be able to get a quick price and instant permission to reuse the content in many different ways.

    Folic acid supplementation is widely used to prevent neural tube defects (NTDs).1,2 Yet not all cases of NTD appear to respond to folic acid. For instance, in the randomised controlled trial sponsored by the Medical Research Council,1 six NTD recurrences were noted among 593 women (1%) who received full folic acid supplementation, compared with 21 recurrences among 602 unsupplemented pregnancies (3.5%). Hence, in this study, 28% of NTD cases failed to be prevented by folic acid. Currently, no alternative therapy is available for such “folic acid resistant” NTDs.

    Studies in mice provide evidence for folate sensitive and folate resistant NTD types. NTDs in mice homozygous for mutations of the Pax3, Cart1, and crooked tail genes can be prevented by folic acid,3–5 whereas NTDs in the …

    View Full Text