Bloom syndrome is an autosomal recessive disorder characterized by prenatal and postnatal growth deficiency, photosensitive skin changes, immune deficiency, insulin resistance, and a greatly increased risk of early-onset cancer and development of multiple malignancies. Loss-of-function variants of the BLM gene, which codes for a RecQ helicase, cause Bloom syndrome. We report a consanguineous family, with 2 siblings showing clinical signs of suspected chromosome breakage disorder. One of them developed recurrent malignant lymphoma during lifetime. We performed next-generation sequencing analysis, focusing on cancer predisposition syndromes. We identified a homozygous pathogenic nonsense variant c.1642C>T (p.Gln548*) in the BLM gene in the proband, associated with Bloom syndrome. Sanger sequencing validated the presence of a homozygous pathogenic variant in the proband and also in the brother with short stature. In this article, we will focus on the clinical presentation of the syndrome in this particular family as well as the characteristics of malignancies found in the proband.
Keywords: Autosomal recessive variant; BLM; Bloom syndrome; Consanguinity; Lymphoma.
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