Homozygotes for oculopharyngeal muscular dystrophy have a severe form of the disease.
Autosomal dominant oculopharyngeal muscular dystrophy (OPMD) usually begins with ptosis or dysphagia during the fifth or sixth decade of life. We studied 7 patients with OPMD symptoms starting before the age of 36 years. All were found to be homozygotes for the dominant (GCG)9 OPMD mutation. On average, disease onset was 18 years earlier than in heterozygotes, and patients had a significantly larger number of muscle nuclei containing intranuclear inclusions (INIs) (9.4 vs 4.9%).
Department of Neurology, Hillel Yaffe Medical Center, Hadera, Israel.
S C
SC
Blumen
B
B
Brais
A D
AD
Korczyn
S
S
Medinsky
J
J
Chapman
A
A
Asherov
P
P
Nisipeanu
F
F
Codère
J P
JP
Bouchard
M
M
Fardeau
F M
FM
Tomé
G A
GA
Rouleau
D000328:Adult; D017677:Age Distribution; D017668:Age of Onset; D004252:DNA Mutational Analysis; D005260:Female; D006239:Haplotypes; D006720:Homozygote; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009136:Muscular Dystrophies / Q000235:genetics*; D009801:Oculomotor Muscles; D010375:Pedigree; D010609:Pharyngeal Muscles; D010641:Phenotype