Pediatr Nephrol (2004) 19:1065DOI 10.1007/s00467-004-1555-4

L E T T E R T O T H E E D I T O R S

Alexander K. C. Leung · Reginald S. Sauve

Genitourinary anomaly in congenital varicella syndrome

Published online: 23 June 2004� IPNA 2004

Sirs,We read with interest the article entitled “Genitourinaryanomaly in congenital varicella syndrome: case reportand review” by Fujita et al. [1] in the May 2004 issue ofPediatric Nephrology. The authors described a 1-year-oldboy with congenital varicella syndrome who had vesico-ureteric reflux and neurogenic bladder. The authors re-viewed the literature and found 14 other cases of con-genital varicella syndrome with urogenital anomalies.The most frequent urogenital anomaly was neurogenicbladder.

We recently reported a male patient with congenitalvaricella syndrome with colonic atresias, neurogenicbladder, micropenis, and undescended testes [2]. In ad-dition, the affected child had left microphthalmia, ipsi-lateral Horner syndrome, a hypoplastic left arm with a

diminished sensation to pain, linear scarring on the leftarm, left lumbar scoliosis, and a patulous hypotonic rectalsphincter. The occurrence of genitourinary anomalies inpatients with congenital varicella syndrome may be morecommon than is presently appreciated and we would liketo bring this to the attention of your readers.

References

1. Fujita H, Yoshii A, Maeda J, Kosaki K, Shishido S, Nakai H,Awazu M (2004) Genitourinary anomaly in congenital varicellasyndrome: case report and review. Pediatr Nephrol 19:554–557

2. Sauve RS, Leung AK (2003) Congenital varicella syndrome withcolonic atresias. Clin Pediatr (Phila) 42:451–453

A. K. C. Leung ()) · R. S. SauveDepartment of Pediatrics, The University of Calgary,Alberta Children’s Hospital,200, 233–16th Avenue NW, T2M 0H5 Calgary,Alberta, Canadae-mail: aleung@ucalgary.caTel.: +1-403-2303300Fax: +1-403-2303322