Leukodystrophy- psuedometachromatic
Overview
Metachromatic leukodystrophy (MLD, also called Arylsulfatase A deficiency) is a lysosomal storage disease which is commonly listed in the family of leukodystrophies. Leukodystrophiea effect the growth and/or development of myelin, the fatty covering which acts as an insulator around nerve fibers throughout the central and peripherial nervous systems.
Symptoms
Like many other genetic disorders that affect lipid metabolism, there are several forms of MLD, which are late infantile, juvenile, and adult. In the late infantile form, which is the most common form MLD, affected children begin having difficulty walking after the first year of life. Symptoms include muscle wasting and weakness, muscle rigidity, developmental delays, progressive loss of vision leading to blindness, convulsions, impaired swallowing, paralysis, and dementia. Children may become comatose. Untreated, most children with this form of MLD die by age 5, often much sooner. Children with the juvenile form of MLD (onset between 3-10 years of age) usually begin with impaired school performance, mental deterioration, and dementia and then develop symptoms similar to the late infantile form but with slower progression. Age of death is variable, but normally within 10 to 15 years of symptom onset. The adult form commonly begins after age 16 as a psychiatric disorder or progressive dementia. Adult-onset MLD progresses more slowly than the late infantile and juvenile forms, with a protracted course of a decade or more. In rare cases the body can compensate for the deficiency and the person will exhibit no symptoms.
Causes
MLD is directly caused by a deficiency of the enzyme arylsulfatase A. Without this enzyme, sulfatides build up in many tissues of the body, eventually destroying the myelin sheath of the nervous system. The myelin sheath is a fatty covering that protects nerve fibers. Without it, the nerves in the brain cannot function properly.
Treatment
There is no cure for MLD, nor a standard form of treatment and is a result of a terminal illness. Children with advanced juvenile or adult onset, and late infantile patients displaying symptoms have treatment limited to pain and symptom management. Presymptomatic late infantile MLD patients, as well as those with juvenile or adult MLD that are either presymptomatic or displaying mild to moderate symptoms, have the option of bone marrow transplantation (including stem cell transplantation), which may slow down the progression of the disease, or stop its progression in the central nervous system, however results in the peripheral nervous system have been less dramatic and the long-term effects of these therapies have show mixed results. Treatment options for the future that are currently being investigated include gene therapy and enzyme replacement therapy (ERT), substrate reduction therapy (SRT), and potentially an enzyme enhancement therapy (EET). A team of international researchers and foundations has organized to form an International MLD Registry to create and manage a shared repository of knowledge, including the natural history of MLD. This consortium consists of scientific, academic and industry resources. The registry is not up and operating as of December, 2007, but the team is optimistic that this will change in 2008.