Girl who doesn't age baffling docs

Doctors are trying to determine what's gone wrong with the aging process in a 16-year-old American girl who's the size of an infant and has the mental capacity of a toddler.

Brooke Greenberg may be unique among documented cases of children who fail to grow or develop in some way, said the girl's paediatrician, Dr Lawrence Pakula from Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in Baltimore.

In a recent paper, Pakula and his colleagues listed a range of inconsistencies in Brooke's aging process. For example, she still has baby teeth and her bone age is estimated to be that of a 10-year-old, but she's never been diagnosed with a known genetic syndrome or chromosomal abnormality. The article appeared in the journal Mechanisms of Ageing and Development.

Parts of body develop differently
Instead of developing as a co-ordinated unit, independent parts of Brooke's body are developing out of sync, said the article's co-author, Dr Richard Walker of the University of South Florida College of Medicine, ABC News reported.

"There've been very minimal changes in Brooke's brain," Walker said. "Various parts of her body, rather than all being at the same stage, seem to be disconnected." – (HealthDay News, June 2009)