When syndactyly presents as an isolated anomaly, the inheritance pattern is which?

• A. Autosomal recessive
• B. Autosomal dominant
• C. Sex-linked dominant
• D. X-linked recessive

Answer: (B)

Isolated nonsyndromic syndactyly is most often autosomal dominant. That means a single mutated allele is enough to cause the trait, and an affected parent has a 50% chance of passing it to each child, with no strong preference for sex. The condition can show variable expressivity, so family members may have very mild or more noticeable webbing, but the transmission pattern stays dominantly inherited. In contrast, autosomal recessive would require both parents to carry a mutation and typically shows up in siblings rather than across generations; X-linked patterns would show a different sex distribution (often affecting males) and a different inheritance pattern than what’s typically seen with isolated syndactyly.