Males afflicted with Kartagener’s syndrome are sterile because of immotile sperm, and they tend to suffer from lung infections. This disorder has a genetic basis. Suggest what the underlying defect might be.

Kartagener syndrome is a subset of primary ciliary dyskinesia, an autosomal recessive condition characterized by abnormal ciliary structure and/or function leading impaired mucociliary clearance. The prevalence of primary ciliary dyskinesia is approximately 1/12000-1/60000.5 Approximately 50% of patient with primary ciliary dyskinesia have Kartagener syndrome/situs abnormality. No gender predilection is recognized. Kartagener syndrome is characterised by the clinical triad of 1: situs inversus chronic sinusitis and/or nasal polyposis bronchiectasis Other features include : telecanthus - widened interpupillary distance by a nasal polyp Infertility in male subfertility in female. CT tends to demonstrate bronchiectasis which may be variable in severity. However, changes are much milder than in cystic fibrosis4. The morphology of bronchiectasis can be tubular/cylindrical or saccular/cystic. In addition, CT demonstrates: consolidation mucocele, impacted mucus in bronchioles. tree-in-bud pattern or centrilobular nodules maybe encountered with mucus impaction and endobronchial spread of infection mosaic perfusion/ air trapping as ancillary findings eventual scarring may result from recurrent infection, requiring pulmonary resection surgery Situs abnormality with associated lower lobe bronchiectasis should prompt the diagnosis of Kartagener syndrome. However, there is a differential: hereditary impaired mucociliary clearance cystic fibrosis Young syndrome impaired immunity primary immunodeficiency syndrome acquired immunodeficiency (AIDS) hypersensitivity and immune reaction ABPA graft versus host disease. read less