Muir-Torre syndrome – see Lynch syndrome

Muir-Torre syndrome

Muir-Torre syndrome is a clinical syndrome used to describes families with skin tumours such as keratoacanthomas and sebaceous adenocarcinomas who also have bowel (colon) and duodenal cancers.

It's an old term, and combines the names of the 2 doctors who described the clinical syndrome in the 1960s: Surgeon EG Muir and dermatologist D Torre.

It is no longer used. It describes the clinical features of a hereditary cancer syndrome now known to be caused by inherited mutations affecting the mismatch repair genes, Lynch syndrome.

While Lynch syndrome is associated with sebaceous adenocarcinomas in some families, it is the increased likelihood of colon, uterine and ovarian cancer that causes the greatest risk.

The combination of bowel cancers and sebaceous adenoma and other skin lumps was also described by another doctor and used to be known as Gardner syndrome. It is also an obsolete term.