Active clinical trials for "Muscular Atrophy, Spinal"

SMA (Spinal Muscular Atrophy) is a rare neuromuscular disease characterized by motoneuron damage. Symptoms consist of respiratory involvement with numerous respiratory infections and eventually respiratory failure, for which NIV (Non Invasive Ventilation) is often used. Ventilation machines are in close contact with the respiratory tract of patients. They contain heated water to humidify the circuit. These humid and warm environments are conducive to the development of bacteria such as Pseudomonas aeruginosa. In this context, it is interesting to look for the presence or absence of bacteria, in comparison with the respiratory ecology of the patients. The aim is to highlight the microbiological role of NIV on the occurrence of respiratory bacterial infections or secondary infections in patients with SMA. To do this, samples are taken from the machines, and ECBCs are performed on patients during respiratory physiotherapy sessions.

For children who use a power wheelchair, a powered wheelchair standing device (PWSD) may be considered for daily use. A PWSD allows a child to electronically move between sitting and standing and can be driven in either position. Existing published PWSD research in pediatrics is limited to boys with Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD).(1, 2) While these studies provide some insights into PWSD use in boys with DMD, they do not reflect PWSD use in children with other conditions. The purpose of this exploratory study is to determine the feasibility of a research protocol exploring use of a PWSD in children who have neurodevelopmental conditions other than DMD.

The goal of this pilot interventional study is to learn about the use of an in-home harness system in children who have been treated for spinal muscular atrophy. The main questions it aims to answer are: Is the in-home body weight support harness system a feasible option for families to use? Is the in-home body weight support harness system a useful tool for children treated for spinal muscular atrophy? Is the in-home body weight support harness system a safe tool for children treated for spinal muscular atrophy? Participants will be given an in-home body weight support harness system and taught how to use it. Families will document how often and for how long they use the system over 6 months. Children will be given tests of motor function at the beginning, 3-months, and 6-months. At the end of the study, families will be asked to fill out a questionnaire about thier experience using the system.

Motor neuron disease (MND) or ALS is a nervous system disease. ALS leads to a loss of movement ability that eventually leads to death. At the moment, there is no known treatment for ALS. Early diagnosis in individuals improves clinical care and facilitates timely entry into clinical trials. However, current methods for diagnosis are primarily clinical, and to date, no cost-effective biomarkers have been developed. Our objective is to identify a robust non-invasive neurophysiological-based system that can be used both as a biomarker of disease onset, and a measurement of progression using quantitative EEG and surface EMG (bipolar and high-density). The investigators postulate that analysing the joint recordings of EEG and EMG (bipolar or high-density) can give measures that better distinguish healthy people and ALS patient subgroups and that the findings can be developed as biomarkers of early diagnosis and disease progression.

Spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) is a rare, treatable, genetic disease that typically occurs in infancy and early childhood. SMA progressively, and irreversibly, destroys motor neurons in the brainstem and spinal cord, which control movement, in turn leading to deterioration or loss of muscle strength. This can begin during the first 3 months of a child's life, and in those with the most common and severe type of SMA, 95% of all motor neurons can be lost before the age of 6 months. The majority of children with this type of SMA, if untreated, will not survive beyond 2 years of age without permanent ventilatory support. Of those who do, many will not achieve independent sitting and few walk independently. A challenging aspect of treating SMA is the delay in its diagnosis, usually after disease onset. Diagnosis usually occurs when the affected child presents clinical symptoms, by which point a significant portion of their motor neurons will have been irreversibly lost. In contrast, infants and children with SMA who are identified and treated at an early stage, especially those treated pre-symptomatically, show much better motor development. Given that SMA is caused by deletions or mutations in the survival motor neuron 1 gene (SMN1), it can be detected via genetic testing before a child presents with clinical symptoms. This lends itself to newborn genetic screening, through which pre-symptomatic diagnosis of SMA can be made as early as possible, providing the opportunity for substantially enhanced therapeutic effects and outcomes. The aim and objective of this screening study is to assess the uptake, reliability, and feasibility of neonatal screening for SMA in a UK setting. It is hoped that by doing so it will help establish the early detection, diagnosis, and access to the recently available therapeutic options for SMA.Screening will be done through the routine UK newborn blood spot screening pathway, using spare capacity from a newborns' Guthrie card (dried blood spot sample). A major objective of the design of this protocol and the processes it describes, together with the staff funding secured, has been to ensure that it will not interfere with the standard screening procedure in any way.Recruitment will be carried out in the maternity units of four hospital trusts in the Thames Valley: Oxford University Hospitals NHS Trust, Royal Berkshire NHS Foundation Trust, Milton Keynes University Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, and Buckinghamshire Healthcare NHS Trust.

This study will evaluate the pharmacokinetics (PK) and safety of risdiplam in participants with spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) under 20 days of age at first dose.

The primary objectives of the study are to obtain clinically meaningful data on survival and outcomes of all the patients with spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) 5q types 1 through 4 (according to international classification), being followed in the reference centers of the disease in France between September 1, 2016 and August 31, 2024. The registry will collect retrospectively and prospectively the longitudinal data of the long-term follow-up for child and adult patients, under real life conditions of current medical practice, in order to document the clinical evolution of patients (survival, motor, respiratory, orthopedic and nutritional), the conditions of use of the treatments, the mortality rates of treated and untreated patients, the tolerance of the treatments, adverse events in order to better define their places in the therapeutic strategy.

Spinal Muscular Atrophy (SMA) is a life-threatening disease in infancy that is caused by inactivating mutations in the Survival Motor Neuron 1 (SMN1) gene1,2. SMN1 mutations lead to deficiency in SMN protein, which results in degeneration of motor neurons in the spinal cord, progressive muscle weakness and atrophy. The almost identical SMN2 gene does not suffice SMN function, because skipping of exon 7 in its mRNA yields an unstable protein. Nevertheless, SMN2 represents a disease modifier gene and increasing its expression or rescuing its splicing defect have long been considered elective strategies for SMA1,2. After substantial translational research efforts, the first therapies eliciting clinical benefits for SMA patients have recently become available3. Nusinersen, an antisense oligonucleotide (ASO), and Risdiplasm, a small molecule, bind the SMN2 RNA and promote splicing of exon 7. On the other hand, Zolgesma, an adeno-associated virus delivering the SMN1 gene (scAAV9-SMN), bypasses the need to correct the splicing defect. Nevertheless, none of these therapies currently represents a complete cure for patients, because not all of them respond equally and in a significant portion of patients the symptoms are attenuated but not corrected3. It is believed that early treatment, possibly at a pre-symptomatic stage, would positively affect the clinical response and may significantly improve patient's management. However, another critical point is the current lack of information on the long-term efficacy and safety of the current treatments4. In this scenario, it is likely that further elucidation of the biological functions of the SMN genes and the identification of robust biomarkers for stratification of patients will set the ground for more "personalized" therapies, which may account for the clinical variability observed in patients and help improving the therapies in use.

The primary objective is to evaluate the safety of nusinersen sodium injection in the postmarketing setting in Korea. The secondary objective is to evaluate the effectiveness of nusinersen sodium injection in the postmarketing setting in Korea.

The first cure for Spinal Muscular Atrophy (SMA; Nusinersen) has been approved by FDA in 2017. Although it improves the clinical picture of most SMA patients, not all exhibit the same response to treatment. In this project the aim will be: i. identifying cell-free SMN circular RNAs (circRNAs) in body fluids of SMA patients as potential biomarkers before and after Nusinersen; ii. evaluating their prognostic power as predictors of the clinical response of SMA patients to Nusinersen; iii. identifying human intronic polymorphisms that affect SMN circRNAs biogenesis and impact on the efficacy of Nusinersen. The results obtainable with this project will evaluate if different concentration of cell free SMN circRNAs in SMA patients could underlie the genotype-phenotype mismatch, usually observed, and the reduced response of a subset of SMA patients to therapy. Our research could highlight the need for these of combinatorial 'SMN-plus' and "personalized" therapies that account for individual differences.