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Brief Report: Macrocephaly Phenotype and Psychiatric Comorbidity in a Clinical Sample of Mexican Children and Adolescents with Autism Spectrum Disorders

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Abstract

Autism spectrum disorders (ASD) may present with macrocephaly. Few studies have analyzed the association with psychiatric comorbidity. Participants were 94 children with any ASD with an age range from 2 to 16 years (Mdn 6 years), 82% were boys. It was found that 20% of the sample had macrocephaly and 1% microcephaly. There was no association between the presence of macrocephaly and subtype of ASD. The most associated comorbidity was attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) 54.2%, followed by specific phobia 34%, dysthimia 29.7%, oppositional defiant disorder 13.83% motor tics 11.7%, separation anxiety 9.5% and Gilles de la Tourette 8.5%. In conclusion, macrocephaly and psychiatric comorbidity in this clinical sample of children with ASD is similar to the international literature results.

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Acknowledgments

We gratefully acknowledge the contribution of the parents and children who participated in this study.

Author Contributions

LAG participated in the study design, collected the data, supervise and drafted the manuscript. LFG drafted the manuscript, organize the dataset and interpreted the data. APMA drafted the manuscript and made the initial statistical analysis. MAA performed the additional statistical analysis suggested by the reviewers and drafted the additional statistical results segment of the manuscript. All the authors read and approve the manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Hospital Psiquiátrico Infantil Juan N Navarro, Secretaría de Salud, Avenida San Buenaventura 86, Colonia Belisario, Domínguez, 14080, Mexico City, Mexico

    Lilia Albores-Gallo & Laura Fritsche-García

  2. Research in Genetic, Clinical and Community Epidemiology, Mexico City, Mexico

    Lilia Albores-Gallo

  3. School of Medicine, National Autonomous University of México, Mexico City, Mexico

    Laura Fritsche-García

  4. Head of División of Neoplasic and Proliferative Disorders, Centro Médico Nacional “20 de Noviembre” ISSSTE, Mexico City, Mexico

    Arturo Pabel Miranda-Aguirre

  5. The World Bank, Washington, DC, USA

    Montserrat Avila-Acosta

Authors
  1. Lilia Albores-Gallo
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  2. Laura Fritsche-García
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  3. Arturo Pabel Miranda-Aguirre
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  4. Montserrat Avila-Acosta
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Lilia Albores-Gallo.

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The authors declare they have no conflict of interest.

Ethical Approval

All procedures performed in human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

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Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

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Albores-Gallo, L., Fritsche-García, L., Miranda-Aguirre, A.P. et al. Brief Report: Macrocephaly Phenotype and Psychiatric Comorbidity in a Clinical Sample of Mexican Children and Adolescents with Autism Spectrum Disorders. J Autism Dev Disord 47, 2911–2917 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-017-3175-4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-017-3175-4

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