Brijendra Singh¹ , Renu Gupta² , Rajneesh Garg³ , Sunil K Khattri⁴

1 Department of Anatomy, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Jodhpur, 342005, India
2 Department of Anatomy, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Jodhpur, 342005, India
3 Department of Orthopedics, S.N. Medical College, Jodhpur, 342005, India
4 Director Rajiv Gandhi Superspeciality Hospital, Tahirpur, New Delhi, India
Author    Correspondence author
International Journal of Clinical Case Reports, 2013, Vol. 3, No. 7   doi: 10.5376/ijccr.2013.03.0007
Received: 12 May, 2013    Accepted: 20 May, 2013    Published: 22 May, 2013

This is an open access article published under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Anotia is a condition when ears are completely absent while microtia is a congenital anomaly of the face in which ear are malformed since birth that ranges in severity from mild structural abnormalities to complete absence of the ear and its parts. It occurs as an isolated birth defect or as a part of spectrum of anomalies or a syndrome. This may happen as a part of first branchial arch syndrome or in isolation too. The prevalence is considered to be higher in Hispanics, Asians, Native Americans, and Andeans. The etiology of microtia and the causes of this congenital anomaly is still not clearly defined or explained till now; there is wide variability in prevalence that is poorly understood too. Strong evidence supports the role of environmental and genetic causes for microtia. In this paper we tried to review current knowledge of the epidemiology and genetics of microtia, including potential candidate genes supported by evidence from human syndromes and animal models. Because our findings are entirely different about its hereditical and bilateral involvement makes this case a rare and special.

Microtia; Anotia; Congenital defect; Hereditary; Ear deformity