Clinical, diagnostic, and therapeutic aspects of the marfan syndrome

Marfan syndrome (MFS) is a relatively common and often lethal disease of connective tissue. Medical, surgical and basic research advances over the last two decades have had a major positive impact on the clinical management of MFS patients. Life expectancy has increased significantly, more discriminating diagnostic criteria have been developed, a number of new clinical entities have been recognized, and exciting opportunities for drug-based therapy have emerged. Despite such a remarkable progress, MFS diagnosis remains difficult and aortic disease progression is very heterogeneous and clinical outcome is unpredictable. Ongoing research efforts are therefore exploiting animal models of MFS to identify novel diagnostic and prognostic biomarkers, genetic, epigenetic and environmental modifiers and druggable biological targets.