(1) Istituto di Clinica Neurologica, Centro Dino Ferrari, Universita di Milano, Via F. Sforza 35, I-20122 Milano, Italy;(2) Department of Neurology, Columbia University, New York, New York, USA
Abstract:
Summary We studied a 5-year-old boy who had the floppy infant syndrome and a dystrophic pattern on muscle biopsy. According to the clinical presentation and the histopathological findings the diagnosis of congenital muscular dystrophy with associated intellectual retardation was made. Immunohistochemical and immunoblot studies using anti-dystrophin antibodies showed complete absence of the protein in the patient's muscle. DNA analysis using cDNA probes showed a deletion at the 5 end of the dystrophin gene. Our observations on this patient suggest a new phenotypical variant of Duchenne muscular dystrophy.