Patients have striking pathognomonic dental features characterized by globodontia of the primary and secondary dentition, sparing the incisors. Missing teeth, especially premolars, are also reported. Due to abnormal crown morphology, there is a great propensity to formation of caries. There is a high rate of endodontic-periodontic lesions due to the aberrant coronal and pulpal morphology. The dental conditions are associated with bilateral sensorineural high-frequency hearing deficit with an age of onset that varies from early childhood to middle age. Variable facial dysmorphism has also been reported. One family was found to have an associated bilateral iris and retinal ocular coloboma.
Haploinsufficiency in the fibroblast growth factor 3 (FGF3) gene (11q13) has been reported in patients with otodental syndrome and is thought to cause the phenotype. In the family with the associated ocular coloboma, a microdeletion in the Fas-associated death domain (FADD) gene (11q13.3) was found to be responsible for ocular features.
