Coarse facial features or "'coarse facies"' describes a constellation of facial features that are present in many inborn errors of metabolism.
Features include:
- large, bulging head
- prominent scalp veins
- "saddle-like, flat bridged nose with broad, fleshy tip"
- large lips and tongue
- small, widely spaced and/or malformed teeth
- hypertrophic alveolar ridges and/or gums
Heads tend to be longer than normal from front to back, with a bulging forehead. This is because of the earlier than normal or premature fusion of skull bones in an affected individual.
Famous quotes containing the words coarse and/or facial:
“There is no country in which so absolute a homage is paid to wealth. In America there is a touch of shame when a man exhibits the evidences of large property, as if after all it needed apology. But the Englishman has pure pride in his wealth, and esteems it a final certificate. A coarse logic rules throughout all English souls: if you have merit, can you not show it by your good clothes and coach and horses?”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“You must call up every strength you own
And you can rip off the whole facial mask.”
—William Dewitt Snodgrass (b. 1926)