Klippel–Feil syndrome

Klippel–Feil syndrome is a rare disease, initially reported in 1884 by Maurice Klippel and André Feil from France, characterized by the congenital fusion of any two of the seven cervical vertebrae. The syndrome occurs in a heterogeneous group of patients unified only by the presence of a congenital defect in the formation or segmentation of the cervical spine. Klippel-feil results in limited movement of the neck. Klippel–Feil syndrome is sometimes identified by shortness of the neck, but not all people with this disorder have a visibly shortened neck. Some people with the syndrome have a very low hairline. In 1919, André Feil in his PhD thesis, suggested another classification of the syndrome encompassing not only deformation of the cervical spine but also deformation of the lumbar and thoracic spine.