Project status: Active

Research area: Genomic Medicine > Reproductive Epidemiology

The Australian Hand Difference Register (AHDR) is a database of children born with a hand difference and/or arm difference.

Congenital hand differences are not that common and occur in up to 30 children in every 10,000 births.

Overview

ahdr logo final web A congenital hand difference is a hand or arm difference that is present at birth. Some of the more common differences include:

having more or fewer than five fingers
fingers that will not bend or will not straighten
fingers that are joined together
bones in the hand or arm that are too short or missing

Congenital hand differences are not that common and occur in up to 30 children in every 10,000 births, depending on the population studied [1,2,3].

The Australian Hand Difference Register (AHDR) was established in 2017 and contains information about children born with a hand and/or arm difference. The AHDR is managed by the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute, which is located at The Royal Children’s Hospital in Melbourne.

The AHDR will help us to:

find out how many children are born with various types of hand and or arm difference in Australia
improve our understanding about causes and risk factors
gain information to help in planning services
identify possible participants for future research
identify the effects of hand differences on children
decide how to best manage hand differences