Marfan Syndrome – Board-Style Questions

What this deck covers

Marfan syndrome in 18 board-style clinical cases with worked explanations. Each case gives you a clinical vignette, four options, the correct answer, and an explanation of why each of the other three is wrong, with the guideline or textbook it follows named on the answer.

Board-style teaching questions for paediatricians and trainees preparing for paediatric board, MRCPCH and licensing examinations. Written from published guidelines and standard paediatric textbooks, with the source named on every answer.

The 18 cases, in order

1. Enough for the diagnosis
2. Which way the lens goes
3. A look-alike
4. Neither parent
5. Slowing the aorta
6. When to operate
7. Keeping the valve
8. The spine
9. A second valve
10. A sick newborn
11. Twisty arteries
12. Beyond the root
13. Planning a baby
14. Back pain
15. Flashes and a curtain
16. Many small signs
17. At the bedside
18. If it happens

Diagnoses and management options tested

Across the 18 cases you are asked to choose between options such as: Tall stature and long fingers alone, Upward and outward, Marfan syndrome with lens involvement, Recessive inheritance from both parents, An angiotensin receptor blocker, Wait for chest pain before acting, A mechanical valve and graft, Hearing tests every month, Mitral valve prolapse with regurgitation, Classic Marfan syndrome, mild form, Marfan syndrome, None, as the root is repaired, Root surgery before pregnancy, as it is large, A slipped disc in the lower back.

Clinical pearls from this deck

• Aortic root dilation plus a dislocated lens: Marfan.
• Marfan lens: up and out.
• Tall, clotting, learning difficulty, lens down: homocystinuria.
• Marfan with unaffected parents: a new variant.
• Growing Marfan root: losartan or a beta blocker.
• Marfan root near threshold: plan surgery.

Work through the deck once for recognition, then again a week later to test yourself — each question gives the answer and explains why every other option fails.

More from this system: all cardiology case decks · pediatric reference values.