TITLE:
Pregnancy risk markers in Tourette syndrome: A systematic review
AUTHORS:
Larry Burd, James Miles, Chun-Zi Peng, Jacob Kerbeshian, Andrew D. Williams
KEYWORDS:
Tourette Syndrome; Tics; Pregnancy; Prenatal; Perinatal; Risk Markers
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Journal of Pediatrics,
Vol.2 No.1,
March
21,
2012
ABSTRACT: The published literature on the prevalence of pregnancy risk markers in patients with Tourette Syndrome (TS) was reviewed. PubMed was searched for papers describing studies of pregnancy risk markers in TS. All years and languages were searched, and the reference sections of each paper were also reviewed for additional citations. We identified 20 studies reporting on pregnancy risk markers in 1588 subjects with TS. Six studies used comparison populations and two utilized twins for comparisons. Three risk markers (decreased birth weight, father’s age, and number of prior terminations of pregnancy) were identified as possible risk markers for TS. To date, no pregnancy risk marker has been demonstrated to increase risk for development of TS, to increase syndromal severity, rates of comorbidity, or to increase duration of TS.