Active clinical trials for "Muscular Dystrophy, Duchenne"

The purpose of the study is to assess the safety, tolerability, and effects of L-Arginine on muscles in boys with dystrophinopathy on corticosteroids. Specifically, to see if L-arginine reduces muscle signal abnormalities on MRI done pre and post 30 days of L-arginine administration.

This study is designed to generate additional data on the effect of ataluren for producing dystrophin protein in nonsense mutation nmDMD participants. This study will evaluate dystrophin levels from participants with nmDMD who currently have been receiving ataluren for ≥9 months. The study will have a single visit (Visit 1).

Physicians seek a method to assess neuromuscular disease that is both non-invasive and quantifiable. Many patients do not tolerate standard current day assessment tools (such as needle electromyogram), and Electrical Impedance Myography (EIM) has the potential to serve as a non-invasive, quantifiable, diagnostic tool for neuromuscular disease. If successful, these devices will allow for improved ability to diagnose neuromuscular disease and to assess disease progression or remission, allowing for better care of individual patients as well as for use in clinical trials, where improved outcome measures for neuromuscular diseases is being sought.

The investigators are performing a gene therapy clinical trial in Becker muscular dystrophy (BMD) and sporadic inclusion body myositis (sIBM) patients. Both of these conditions have an important common feature: loss of ability to walk because of weakness of the thigh muscles. The investigators plan to do a gene therapy trial to deliver a gene to muscle called follistatin (FS344) that can build muscle size and strength. If successful, the investigators can increase the size of the thigh muscle and potentially prolong a patient's ability to walk. The gene will be carried into the muscle by a virus called adeno-associated virus (AAV). This virus occurs naturally in muscle and does not cause any human disease, setting the stage for its safe use in a clinical trial. Presently there is no treatment that can reverse Becker muscular dystrophy or sporadic inclusion body myositis. Only supportive care is currently possible. In this study, subjects with either of these diseases will have shots of the follistatin gene injected directly into thigh muscle on one (first cohort) or both legs (2nd and 3rd cohort). One hundred and eighty days following the gene delivery, the muscle will undergo biopsy to look closely at the muscle to see if the muscle fibers are bigger. Between the time of the gene transfer and the muscle biopsy, patients will be carefully monitored for any side effects of the treatment. This will include an MRI of the thigh muscle before treatment and at day 180 following treatment. Blood and urine tests, as well as physical examination will be done on the subjects during the screening visit and on days 0, 1, 2, 7, 14, 30, 60, 90, and 180 to make sure that there are no side effects from the gene injections. Sutures will be removed 2 weeks post-biopsy. Additional blood samples will be collected at 9, 12, 18, and 24 months. Patients will be seen at the end of 1st and 2nd years for a physical exam, assessment of muscle strength and appropriate blood tests.

Summary for Patients: This study, funded by the Muscular Dystrophy Association, is intended to build on recent findings published in the journal Nature showing beneficial effects of tadalafil (also known as Cialis) in mice with an animal version of Duchenne and Becker muscular dystrophies. Only two doses of tadalafil improved muscle blood flow, allowing the dystrophic mice to perform more exercise with less muscle injury. This new short-term clinical trial will move the testing from animals to human patients with Becker muscular dystrophy and examine the effects of acute tadalafil dosing on muscle blood flow during a bout of exercise. Patients will take two doses of tadalafil prior to exercising. Then doctors will measure whether muscles receive increased blood flow and therefore are better protected during exercise. Scientific Hypothesis: In patients with Becker muscular dystrophy (particularly those with dystrophin gene mutations between exons 41-46), loss of sarcolemmal nitric oxide synthase engenders functional muscle ischemia and thus muscle edema after an acute bout of exercise. The investigators further hypothesize that PDE5A inhibition, which boosts nitric oxide-cGMP signaling, constitutes an effective new countermeasure for these patients.

Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD), an X-linked recessive genetic disease always progressed slowly，tends to leading proximal skeletal muscle atrophy and weakness of limbs, as well as impaired respiratory muscle and cardiac muscle. To a large extent, patients always lose motor function gradually and die for heart failure or severe infection at the end stage of DMD. At present, the treatment strategy relies on heteropathy accompanied with rehabilitation training. However, the therapeutic effect remains extremely limited. Human umbilical cord mesenchymal stem cells (hUC-MSCs) have been evidenced to improve motor function, increase muscle strength and reduce abnormal levels of related enzymes, such as creatine kinase (CK), lactate dehydrogenase (LDH), alanine aminotransferase (ALT) and aspartate aminotransferase (AST). This study is aimed to explore the safety and efficacy of hUC-MSCs transplantation for DMD.

To characterize the natural history and progression of Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy (DMD) to help inform the design of future studies, to capture biomarkers of safety and disease progression and to provide comparative data for the development of rare exons for which formal controlled trials are not feasible.

This study is single arm, single center trial to study the safety and efficacy of bone marrow-derived autologous specific populations of stem cells and mesenchymal stem cells for the treatment of Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy (DMD).

Background: Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) is an X chromosome recessive hereditary disease and mainly characterized by progressive muscle weakness and atrophy. Glucocorticoid is the only proven effective medicine,while side effects limit its use. Recent studies have shown that the vascular density in the DMD patients' muscle is decreased,so muscle are in ischemic and anoxic. Remote ischemic preconditioning(RIPC) can improve the capable of resistanting ischemia and hypoxia and maybe a potential therapy for DMD patients. Methods: 100 patients (aged 2 to 6 years)will be divided into two groups(treatment and control groups) randomly. Treatment group will receive an RIPC stimulus (inflation of a blood pressure cuff on the bilateral thighs to 150 mm Hg for four 5-minute intervals) while control group will receive a similar stimulus (inflation of a blood pressure cuff on the bilateral thighs to 40 mm Hg for four 5-minute intervals). Serum kinase level ,Blood levels of myoglobin, Evaluation of motor function(Four steps test;6-minute walking test) and MRI of lower limbs）at 0 days, 3 days, 3months ,6months. Purpose： To evaluate the safety and tolerability of remote ischemic preconditioning for DMD patients To identify the effectiveness of remote ischemic preconditioning for DMD patients.

This Study is single arm, single center trial to check the safety and efficacy of BMMNC (100 million per dose) for the patient with Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy,