Clinical Description
A broad range of clinical findings was originally reported in those with confirmed short-chain acyl-coA dehydrogenase deficiency (SCADD), including severe dysmorphic facial features, feeding difficulties / failure to thrive, metabolic acidosis, ketotic hypoglycemia, lethargy, developmental delay, seizures, hypotonia, dystonia, and myopathy. However, individuals with no symptoms were also reported.
SCADD was first reported in two neonates who had increased urinary ethylmalonic acid (EMA) excretion; the diagnosis was confirmed enzymatically in skin fibroblasts [Amendt et al 1987]. One of these infants died of overwhelming neonatal acidosis as would be typical of an organic acidemia. However, over the last 20 years more experience with the natural history of SCADD in persons with the biochemical phenotype has identified a much broader phenotypic spectrum than originally anticipated.
Since most infants with SCADD identified through newborn screening programs have been well at the time of diagnosis, the reported relationship of clinical manifestations to the deficiency of SCAD has come into question [Waisbren et al 2008]. Most recent publications based on newborn screening identification have suggested that SCADD causes only a biochemical phenotype that is not clinically relevant, although occasional publications demonstrating some cellular phenotype related to SCADD still appear in the literature [van Maldegem et al 2006, Jethva et al 2008, van Maldegem et al 2010c, Gallant et al 2012, Tonin et al 2016, Nochi et al 2017].
The most convincing study on the clinical relevance of SCADD was reported in 76 babies out of 2,632,058 screened in California over a five-year period [Gallant et al 2012]. Clinical follow up was available on 31 infants, none of whom had any findings suggestive of a metabolic disorder. Seven of these babies with available molecular information were homozygous or compound heterozygous for two pathogenic variants, eight had one pathogenic variant and either the c.511C>T or c.625G>A variant (see Table 1), and seven had two alleles that were either c.511C>T or c.625G>A. In an additional study of 12 individuals with biochemical findings suggestive of SCADD, ten were identified before age three weeks; all were either asymptomatic or reported to have mild hypotonia [Tonin et al 2016]. Two older individuals with variable symptoms were shown only to have the common benign polymorphisms.
All older reports on SCADD identified symptomatic individuals retrospectively; many of such reports did not differentiate between true deficiency and the presence of the c.511C>T or c.625G>A variant. Pedersen et al [2008] summarized the findings in 114 individuals, mostly children undergoing metabolic evaluation for developmental delay. Among the 114 with developmental delay, three subgroups were identified:
23 (20%) with failure to thrive, feeding difficulties, and hypotonia
25 (22%) with seizures
34 (30%) with hypotonia without seizures
Four individuals were asymptomatic, identified either through family studies or newborn screening programs.
In a retrospective study from the Netherlands, van Maldegem et al [2006] identified 31 individuals who met the biochemical and molecular diagnostic criteria for SCADD and also had sufficient information on health and development. The most frequently reported clinical findings were developmental delay (16; designated as "non-severe" in 15), epilepsy (11; non-severe in all), behavioral disorder (8; non-severe in 5), and history of hypoglycemia (6; non-severe in 5). Follow up ranged from one to 18 years: two had progressive clinical deterioration, 12 had no change in clinical findings, eight improved, and nine had complete recovery. In addition, three parents and six sibs were found to have ACADS genotypes identical to the proband; eight of the nine had increased levels of C4 and/or EMA, and one of the six sibs had transient feeding difficulties in the first year.
In a study of ten affected individuals of Ashkenazi Jewish ancestry, eight had developmental delay and four had muscle biopsy-proven multiminicore myopathy [Tein et al 2008]. It has been noted that persons with SCADD with a myopathy reported as multiminicore disease had not undergone a full evaluation and may have had another unrelated cause for their muscle disease such as pathogenic variants in RYR1 or SELENON (SEPN1) [van Maldegem et al 2010c].
As in other fatty acid oxidation disorders, characteristic biochemical findings of SCADD may be absent in affected individuals except during times of physiologic stress including fasting and illness [Bok et al 2003, Pedersen et al 2008]. In addition, manifestations early in life that could be attributed to SCADD appear to resolve completely during long-term follow up for most individuals diagnosed with SCAD.
Individuals with biallelic common variants (c.511C>T and c.625G>A) are so prevalent in the general population that this finding cannot represent a significant risk for clinical disease (see Molecular Genetics). Individuals with an inactivating pathogenic variant on one allele and one of these variants on the other have enzymatic dysfunction that falls between the those with biallelic common variants and those with biallelic inactivating variants. However, California newborn screening data showed that these babies remained asymptomatic [Gallant et al 2012].
Pregnancy-related issues. Acute fatty liver of pregnancy (AFLP), preeclampsia, and/or HELLP syndrome in mothers of affected fetuses have been described, but causation has not been established [Matern et al 2001, Bok et al 2003, van Maldegem et al 2010c].