الفهرس | Only 14 pages are availabe for public view |
Abstract Background: Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy (DMD) an X-linked recessive disorder affecting 1 in 3500- 6000 male births. It is caused by the absence of functional dystrophin, due to mutations in the dystrophin gene. Although the cause of DMD is genetic, there is accumulating data suggesting that an immune response may play a role in pathophysiology of this disease and also contributes to disease progression in DMD patients. Alpha integrins (CD49d) can drive T cells to the site of inflammation favoring migration and adhesion to the muscle tissue and muscle damage by interacting more strongly with the fiber and extracellular matrix proteins. DMD patients are clinically heterogeneous and the functional defect cannot be correlated with genotype. Therefore, it is important to be able to define reliable noninvasive inflammatory biomarkers. Methods: A case control study was carried out at neurology outpatient clinic, Children’s Hospital, Ain Shams University . The study included 20 male patient (mean age of 10.35 years), compared to 20 healthy children age, sex and socioeconomic matched served as control group. Enrolled subjects underwent peripheral blood sampling (for measuring CD49d, CBC and CPK ), motor grading and muscle ultrasound. Results: Patients had a significant higher CD 49 levels than controls. Cutoff values was 0.250 with 90% sensitivity and 70% specificity. Conclusions: Our data indicates that CD49d expression in high levels involved in the inflammatory process seen in DMD patients. |