Werner syndrome
Lethal autosomal recessive disorder
Werner syndrome (WS; sometimes Werner's syndrome; also known as adult progeria) is a rare autosomal recessive disorder which is characterized by the appearance of premature aging.
Werner syndrome is named after the German scientist Otto Werner. He identified the syndrome in four siblings observed with premature aging, which he explored as the subject of his dissertation of 1904.
It has a global incidence rate of less than 1 in 100,000 live births (although incidence in Japan and Sardinia is higher, affecting 1 in 20,000–40,000 and 1 in 50,000, respectively). 1,300 cases had been reported as of 2006. Affected individuals typically grow and develop normally until puberty; the mean age of diagnosis is twenty-four, often realized when the adolescent growth spurt is not observed. The youngest person diagnosed was six years old. The median and mean ages of death are 47–48 and 54 years, respectively. The main causes of death are cardiovascular disease and cancer.
Presentation
Werner syndrome patients exhibit growth retardation, short stature, premature graying of hair, alopecia (hair loss), wrinkling, prematurely aged faces with beaked noses, skin atrophy (wasting away) with scleroderma-like lesions, lipodystrophy (loss of fat tissues), abnormal fat deposition leading to thin legs and arms, and severe ulcerations around the Achilles tendon and malleoli (around ankles).
The public source identifies “Werner syndrome” as lethal autosomal recessive disorder. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Werner, syndrome and Lethal.
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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 Sep 10, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1154619. The Library of Congress control number is sh85146124. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1904 and 2006.
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This entry incorporates text from “Werner 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.