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The characteristic clinical features of the dup(3q) syndrome include typical facial features, mental and growth retardation, and (often) congenital heart anomalies. However, pure duplication of 3qter is rare because most of the reported cases are patients who carry an unbalanced translocation and, in addition to the duplication for 3qter, have a deletion for another chromosomal segment. A new case with a pure duplication of 3q detected in a 2-month-old boy is presented here. Extensive cytogenetic analysis revealed an inverted duplication of the distal part of 3q (chromosomal band 3q26.3 up to the telomere), with no (detectable) loss of the original telomeric sequences. Clinical evaluation revealed several phenotypic hallmarks characteristic for the dup(3q) syndrome. By comparing the duplicated region of this patient with the duplicated regions of the other patients with a pure duplication of 3q, we were able to localize the critical region for the dup(3q) phenotype to band 3q26.3. Alongside this new case with a pure duplication of 3q, an overview of six previous cases is given. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]