We are the combination of four hospitals: the General Hospital, the Children’s Hospital, the Women’s Hospital and the Traumatology, Rehabilitation and Burns Hospital. We are part of the Vall d’Hebron Barcelona Hospital Campus: a world-leading health park where healthcare plays a crucial role.
Below we will list the departments and units that form part of Vall d’Hebron Hospital and the main diseases that we treat. We will also make recommendations based on advice backed up by scientific evidence that has been shown to be effective in guaranteeing well-being and quality of life.
Would you like to know what your stay at Vall d'Hebron will be like? Here you will find all the information.
The commitment of Vall d'Hebron University Hospital to innovation allows us to be at the forefront of medicine, providing first class care adapted to the changing needs of each patient.
A genetic disorder is a disease that originates from an alteration in a gene. In order to diagnose a disease of this type, a DNA analysis must be carried out that allows the detection of mutations or hereditary changes.
Our DNA is like a great library that contains all the information that makes our body work. Each of the books on the shelves are our genes, and an error in one of them is called mutation. These mutations cause genes to not be read correctly, and alter the manufacture of proteins and, therefore, also some functions of our body, leading to different diseases.
Our body is protected from these genetic disorders by having duplicate DNA, that is, we all have two copies of each gene, one inherited from our father and the other from our mother. This means that the appearance of genetic disorders is conditioned by the number of copies we have altered.
In addition to the main hereditary types, there are cases that do not follow these basic rules. This is due to the existence of other less known factors that make each person manifest the disease in different ways:
In recent years, the study of genetic mutations has evolved exponentially, thanks to the appearance of improved techniques that allow us to sequence our genome, all our DNA. Sequencing is basically 'reading' and knowing the exact sequence each of our genes has. Therefore, depending on the situation, we will analyse a specific gene or we will have to go further and read larger areas of the genome. That is why we have several strategies:
The appearance and implementation of all these clinical techniques has led to giant leaps in the genetic diagnosis of many diseases, including dystonia and other movement disorders.
When we talk about genetic diseases we must be aware that the alteration is present in all the cells of our body and cannot be eliminated. New gene therapies focused on correcting the genetic error in some neurological diseases have been in development over the last few years.
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