OBJECTIVE Classic infantile Pompe disease affects many tissues, including the brain. Untreated infants die within their first year. Although enzyme-replacement therapy (ERT) significantly increases survival, its potential limitation is that the drug cannot cross the blood-brain barrier. We therefore investigated long-term cognitive development in patients treated with ERT. METHODS We prospect...

BACKGROUND The development of therapies for lysosomal storage disorders has created a need for biochemical markers to monitor the efficacy of therapy and methods to quantify these markers in biologic samples. In Pompe disease, the concentration of a tetrasaccharide, consisting of four glucose residues, is reputedly increased in urine and plasma, but faster and more sensitive methods are require...

Pompe disease, also known as Glycogen Storage Disease type II (GSD II), is a rare autosomal recessive disorder , due to α-glucosidase A (GAA) deficiency. This was the first disease identified as a lysosomal storage disorder in 1963 (1) and is characterized by a glycogen accumulation in multiple tissues with a predilection of skeletal muscle and heart. Depending on age of onset, two different cl...

Pompe disease is a rare autosomal recessive lysosomal storage disease caused by defi ciency of acid α-glucosidase (GAA). This defi ciency results in glycogen accumulation in the lysosomes, leading to lysosomal swelling, cellular damage, and organ dysfunction. In early onset patients (the classic infantile form), this glycogen accumulation leads to death, usually before the age of 1 year. Some p...

Pompe disease is a rare autosomal recessive hereditary disease caused by genetic defects of acid maltase. This disease could be divided into two forms: infantile and late-onset, which mainly affect cardiac, respiratory, and skeletal muscle systems. Late-onset patients mainly show symptoms of skeletal muscle involvement, but recent reports have found that the central nervous system was also affe...

Emerging phenotypes in long-term survivors with Pompe disease on standard enzyme replacement therapy (ERT) (alglucosidase alfa 20 mg/kg/2 weeks) can include patients with worsening motor function. Whether higher doses of ERT improve skeletal function in these patients has not been systematically studied. This exploratory, randomized, open-label, 52-week study examined the safety and efficacy of...

PURPOSE In Pompe disease, a deficiency of acid α-glucosidase enzyme activity leads to pathologic accumulation of glycogen in tissues. Phenotype heterogeneity in Pompe includes an infantile form and late-onset forms (juvenile- and adult-onset forms). Symptoms common to all phenotypes include progressive muscle weakness and worsening respiratory function. Patients with late-onset forms of Pompe d...

BACKGROUND Infantile Pompe disease is a rare metabolic disease. Patients generally do not survive the first year of life. Enzyme replacement therapy (ERT) has proven to have substantial effects on survival in infantile Pompe disease. However, the costs of therapy are very high. In this paper, we assess the cost-effectiveness of enzyme replacement therapy in infantile Pompe disease. METHODS A ...

INTRODUCTION Muscle stem cells termed satellite cells are essential for muscle regeneration. A central question in many neuromuscular disorders is why satellite cells are unable to prevent progressive muscle wasting. We have analyzed muscle fiber pathology and the satellite cell response in Pompe disease, a metabolic myopathy caused by acid alpha-glucosidase deficiency and lysosomal glycogen ac...

Background: How the absence of lysosomal enzyme acid α-glucosidase causes hypertrophic cardiomyopathy in Pompe disease is unknown. Results: Pompe patient induced pluripotent stem cell-derived cardiomyocytes have normal autophagic and contractile function, but exhibit a deficit of golgi-based protein glycosylation. Conclusions: Loss of lysosomal glycogen hydrolyzing ability results in protein gl...