Intra‐uterine irradiation and iris heterochromia

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Abstract
SUMMARY: The possible association between diagnostic X‐rays in utero and the subsequent development of heterochromic sectors in the iris was investigated. Data were obtained relating to 97 % (7813) of all school entrants aged 4–7 years to Belfast schools during 1961. Of these 67 (0–86 %) were found to have heterochromic sectors of the iris. No significant (at P= 0–05) difference in the proportion affected was found between children reported by their mothers to have been X‐rayed in utero and others. In boys only, the prevalence of heterochromia was slightly, but not significantly, higher in those X‐rayed in utero than in those not X‐rayed.Eight affected boys were X‐rayed in utero, and in as many as seven the X‐ray occurred in the seventh month. This apparent concentration, which was not observed in girls, is unlikely to be due to chance.Dr A. C. Stevenson (Population Genetics Research Unit of the Medical Research Council) suggested this study and the Medical Research Council arranged for Dr Marie‐Odile Rethore (Institut de Progenese, Universite de Paris) to visit Belfast to check our diagnostic criteria. It is a pleasure to acknowledge our debt to them and to the doctors and health visitors of the Belfast County Borough Health Department who bore the burden of the field work. Our thanks are also due to the following members of our staffs who helped in a variety of ways, Mrs Dorothy Hutton, Mrs Jean McCabe, Mrs Linda McCreight, and Miss Helen Smyth.

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