Received: 19 November 2016 | Revised: 3 April 2017 | Accepted: 2 June 2017 DOI: 10.1002/ajmg.a.38338 ORIGINAL ARTICLE Demographics and co-occurring conditions in a clinic-based cohort with Down syndrome in the United Arab Emirates Jennifer Price Corder 1 | Fatima Jaber Sehmi Al Ahbabi 1 | Hind Saif Al Dhaheri 1 | Fares Chedid 2 1 Department of Pediatrics, Tawam Hospital in Affiliation With Johns Hopkins International, Al Ain, United Arab Emirates 2 Department of Neonatology, Al Jalila Children’s Specialty Hospital, Dubai, United Arab Emirates Correspondence Jennifer Price Corder, Department of Pediatrics, Tawam Hospital in Affiliation With Johns Hopkins International, Al Ain, United Arab Emirates. Email: drjencorder@gmail.com The majority of studies describing demographics and co-occurring conditions in cohorts with Down syndrome come from regions outside of the Middle East, mainly from Europe and North America. This paper describes demographics and co-occurring conditions in a hospital-based cohort of individuals with Down syndrome living in the Middle Eastern country of the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The first dedicated Down syndrome clinic in the UAE was established in 2012 at Tawam Hospital in Al Ain. This paper describes a clinic-based cohort of 221 participants over 4 years from the Gulf Down Syndrome Registry, a new Down syndrome database and contact registry created at Tawam Hospital. Key demographic findings include mean maternal age of 37 years, among the highest described in the literature. Sixty-two percent of mothers are >35 years. Over 90% of mothers received post-natal diagnosis of Down syndrome. High sex ratio, parental consanguinity, and large family size also characterize the group. The spectrum of many co-occurring conditions mirrors that of previously described populations, with some notable differences. Cardiovascular malformations are well represented, however, atrioventricular canal is not the most common. Genitourinary conditions are common, as evidenced by 12% of males with hypospadias and 15% with undescended testes. Glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase deficiency, alpha thalas- semia trait, hypovitaminosis D, and dental caries are common in our cohort. This study describes a large hospital-based group with Down syndrome presenting to a new dedicated Down syndrome clinic in the UAE, highlighting unique demographic and co- occurring conditions found in that population. KEYWORDS co-occurring conditions, demographics, Down syndrome, Down syndrome registry, Gulf Down syndrome registry, Middle East, UAE, United Arab Emirates 1 | INTRODUCTION Down syndrome (DS) is the most common chromosomal aneuploidy in live births. DS is associated with some degree of cognitive impairment, in addition to an increased chance of developing a variety of other medical and surgical conditions, the majority of which are treatable. The World Health Organization estimates the global live birth incidence to be about 1:1,000 (World Health Organization, 2016), but regional variations in incidence have also been reported (Nazer & Cifuentes, 2011; Ni She & Filan, 2014). Estimation of population-based prevalence of live births with DS in the United States is most recently calculated at 1:792 (de Graaf, Buckley & Skotko, 2015). International Am J Med Genet. 2017;1–13. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/ajmga © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. | 1