Muscular dystrophies are part of a variety of genetic alterations that are associated with different gene mutations that lead to progressive weakness and muscle atrophy. Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy (DMD) is an X-linked recessive disorder, which causes mutation in the dystrophin gene located on Xp21. It is fatal and has an estimated incidence of 1 in 3500 male births. The main finding is the progressive muscle weakness associated with deficiency of sarcolemmal protein called dystrophin 427-kda. There are a wide range of symptoms in the disease, which may delay diagnosis, Most changes start before the age of four, commonly characterized by difficulty in gait and falls.
muscular dystrophy statistics
Dystrophin is a large gene consisting of 2.6 million DNA base pairs and contains 79 exons. In two thirds of cases the disease is transmitted by a female carrier and the remaining third comes from de novo mutations, no family history of the disease. Approximately 60% of DMD cases are associated with a large intragenic deletion of one or more exons located significantly in the proximal and middle of the gene (exons 3-7 and 44-55 respectively).
About 6% of mutations are associated with duplication of a large segment and the remaining cases result from mutations, small deletions or insertions. The following report will refer a number of cases evaluated at our institution to ascertain the main features of clinicopathologic presentation of DMD and conducted a review of clinical and therapeutic aspects of this type of muscular dystrophy.
Muscular dystrophy Diagnosis
DMD is a lethal X-linked recessive, so the risk of recurrence in a female carrier of the disease in each pregnancy is 50% of sick children, 50% of healthy children, 50% of daughters carriers and finally 50 % of daughters carriers. The muscular dystrophy diagnosis in a family creates hence the need to detect female carriers in order to establish the appropriate genetic counseling.
In the present series only one family could study to establish the carrier status of the mother, which was performed at a national referral center. Advances in molecular genetics have expanded knowledge in relation to muscular dystrophy. Clarification of the pathogenesis, due to lack of a specific protein complex that alters the dystrophin-associated proteins has created a new classification based on the protein and genomic defect. The dystrophinopathies X-linked from a mutation in the dystrophin gene, which is the most common inherited myopathy in men and shows varying degrees of severity from asymptomatic elevation of creatine in Becker Muscular Dystrophy (BMD) which is the form of a mild to severe form of DMD whose disease progresses rapidly and may lose the ability to walk before 12 years.
The course of the DMB is therefore more benign and the average age of onset of symptoms such as muscle weakness and gait disturbance is reported around 12 years old. The clinical phenotype and paraclinical results are relatively homogeneous in DMD, as expressed in the cases studied in this report, which shows no significant differences in the clinical course of other series of cases reported in the literature, but the pediatrician should know to diagnose the various tests and use complementary and available for the diagnosis and provide timely medical care to the patient and family.
DMB shows a more heterogeneous, with little correlation between clinical and laboratory findings. Patients with DMD may have a lower average cognitive and can be shown more specifically on language deficits. In 25 Dutch patients with a mean age of 10 years, five had serious disorders, and five moderate reading. These reading problems were independent of the level of information processing and behavioral functioning. Analysis of reports in parents claimed: the acquisition of early precursors of language in 130 children with DMD and 59 siblings of those who were not affected.
Children with DMD were more likely to show delays in both the motor and language development also had low cognitive scores compared to their healthy siblings. These data show the need for early intervention, as early onset of limited help for learning problems will give benefit of their quality of life. A study analyzed the perception of quality of life of DMD patients conducted in Brazil, reported that the motive which produces unhappiness is caused by socialisolation, as a result of this patient immobility and the second reason is the limitations imposed by the disease, although in this case is more present in the child’s caregiver perceptions own. A cardiopulmonary disease causes progressive muscle weakness, respiratory and other skeletal muscle.
Vital capacity increased along with the physical growth during adolescence, it began to decrease in the early stages of DMD patients. It entered the phase of decline in vital capacity, falling by an average of 8.5% per year after 10-12 years. As a result, patients develop chronic alveolar hypoventilation with advanced. Heart disease manifests as dilated cardiomyopathy and / or cardiac arrhythmias. Ikeniwa, Reported two cases of patients 21 years of age with DMD complicated with dilated cardiomyopathy and stroke, dysarthria and right facial weakness in the first patient with hemiplegia and dysarthria together right at the second. Death occurs primarily from the twenty years from cardiopulmonary failure, where patients are usually subjected to mechanical ventilation.
Muscular dystrophy treatment
Advances in strategies for muscular dystrophy treatment described by Nowak and Davies include stem cell therapy, transplantation of myoblasts, gene replacement therapy, sobrereguladora therapy, proteasome inhibitors and precise correction of mutation, and other tools that are being tested, with varying results. However, the available management so far in our area are of medical, surgical and rehabilitation, to optimize and maintain function.
Among the different drugs have been tried as treatments only corticosteroids have provided a temporary improvement. The results show a low rate of progression or stabilizing muscle strength, but the adverse effects of chronic steroid use has not allowed the consensus of this drug in the standard treatment for DMD. King et al Studied the effects orthopedic long-term treatment with corticosteroids in 143 young people affected, which steroid treatment significantly reduced the scoliosis for over three years independent ambulation, however, there is an increased risk of vertebral and lower limb compared with untreated patients.
The mechanism action of corticosteroids is still uncertain, although several possibilities have been proposed based on the observation in the animal model and in a limited number of patients studied, which include: 1. Altered mRNA levels of structural and signaling genes in the immune response. 2. Reduction of cytotoxic T lymphocytes. 3. Decrease in calcium concentration and flow. 4. Increased expression of laminin and myogenic repair. 5. Delayed muscle apoptosis and cellular infiltration. 6. Enhances the expression of dystrophin. 7. Impairment of neuromuscular transmission. 8. Attenuates necrosis of the muscle fiber. 9. Decrease the percentage of muscle fiber damage. 10. Increased levels of taurine and creatine muscle.
However, further muscular dystrophy research is needed to establish the cellular mechanisms that demonstrate the usefulness of the drug in DMD. On the other hand has been reported that oral administration of glutamine or amino acid supplementation for more than ten days inhibits the breakdown of body protein. While there is no curative treatment can only slow the progression of the disease through a multidisciplinary approach which includes attention and assessment: neurological, nutritional, cardiovascular, respiratory, orthopedic, psychiatric and genetic latter to provide timely advice parents and relatives of patients.
It is also necessary that this treatment should be conducted at an early stage, regular and permanent in this way can reduce these effects and improve life expectancy of patients. It is necessary to know the representative aspects of this disease to be diagnosed early and in turn should be noted that other types of muscular dystrophy, whose data are needed to establish differential diagnosis. In addition to conducting a genealogy can help guide diagnosis or corroboration.
It is essential to conduct a thorough and proper clinical examination looking for signs and symptoms characteristic of the disease, testing laboratory examination results discussed in this report, as well as muscle biopsy to determine the defect through the realization of immunohistochemical and molecular studies of gene alteration, all together to determine the diagnosis of both the patient and the mother and women living in the family. In our institution is not performed molecular diagnosis of conditions such as mentioned above, important information to correlate phenotype and genotype. However, a patient with clinical suspicion of muscular dystrophy, and their families enter into a multidisciplinary clinical assessment protocol to provide comprehensive medical care. The review of cases assessed as presented in this section provides us with interesting data on the clinical course of patients, and committed group of physicians continually updated scientific advances relating to this type of alteration lethal, to provide new tools treatment to be available.
Types of muscular dystrophy
• Becker’s muscular dystrophy • Congenital muscular dystrophy • Duchenne muscular dystrophy • distal muscular dystrophy • Muscular Dystrophy Emery-Dreifuss • Facioscapulohumeral muscular dystrophy • Duchenne muscular waist and limbs • Myotonic Muscular Dystrophy • Muscular dystrophy oculopharyngeal
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