Alcohol and Alcoholism Vol. 37, No. 6, pp. 613-617, 2002
© 2002 Medical Council on Alcohol
PATERNAL ALCOHOL EXPOSURE AND TURNER SYNDROME
1 The Motherisk Program, Division of Clinical Pharmacology and Toxicology, The Department of Pediatrics, The Hospital for Sick Children, 555 University Avenue, Toronto, ON, M5G 1X8,
2 Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, 33 Russell Street, Toronto, ON, M5S 2S1 and
3 Department of Pediatrics, The University of Toronto, ON, Canada
Received 14 May 2001; first review notified 31 May 2002; accepted 27 June 2002
— Aims: Turner syndrome (TS) is a sex chromosome aneuploidy that occurs as a result of a non-disjunctional error in meiosis I or anaphase lag; however, the aetiology of this disorder remains unknown. Anecdotal evidence suggests that paternal alcoholism may play an unidentified role in the aetiology of TS. Accordingly, the primary objective of this study was to determine the potential association between paternal alcohol exposure and TS. Methods: The questionnaire was designed to solicit information about the parents’ health and lifestyle habits occurring 1 year prior to and throughout the pregnancy of their daughter with TS. Alcohol dependence was assessed by the Brief Michigan Alcohol Screening Test (BMAST). The study population was solicited from the Turner’s Syndrome Society of Canada and included any parent(s) having a child with TS who was of any age. Two hundred and twelve families completed and returned the survey. Results: This provided a response rate of 86.5%. Six of the fathers (3.6%; n = 166) and six of the mothers (3.6%; n = 165) had scores of 5 or more on the BMAST (scores of 5+ are considered to be in the ‘alcoholic range’). This is considerably lower than the population norm of 9.5%. Conclusions: Our study has suggested there is no association between paternal or maternal alcohol consumption and TS.