Apert syndrome
congenital disorder of digestive system
Apert syndrome is a form of acrocephalosyndactyly, a congenital disorder characterized by malformations of the skull, face, hands and feet. It is classified as a branchial arch syndrome, affecting the first branchial (or pharyngeal) arch, the precursor of the maxilla and mandible. Disturbances in the development of the branchial arches in fetal development create lasting and widespread effects.
In 1906, Eugène Apert, a French physician, described nine people sharing similar attributes and characteristics. Linguistically, in the term "acrocephalosyndactyly", acro is Greek for "peak", referring to the "peaked" head that is common in the syndrome; cephalo, also from Greek, is a combining form meaning "head"; syndactyly refers to webbing of fingers and toes.
In embryology, the hands and feet have selective cells that die in a process called selective cell death, or apoptosis, causing separation of the digits. In the case of acrocephalosyndactyly, selective cell death does not occur and skin, and rarely bone, between the fingers and toes fuses.
The cranial bones are affected as well, similar to Crouzon syndrome and Pfeiffer syndrome. Craniosynostosis occurs when the fetal skull and facial bones fuse too soon in utero, disrupting normal bone growth. Fusion of different sutures leads to different patterns of growth on the skull.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Apert syndrome” as congenital disorder of digestive system. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Oct 16, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q618246. The first chronological checks are 1906.
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This entry incorporates text from “Apert syndrome” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.