Clinical Trials of NDM

- The research article is entitled, "A Successful Transition to sulfonamides treatment in male infant with novel neonatal diabetes mellitus (NDM) caused by the ABBC8 gene mutation and 3 years follow up". It is a case study on the transitioning of treatments from insulin therapy to sulfonamides therapy. NDM is not initiated by an autoimmune mechanism but mutations in K-sensitve channel, "KCNJ11, ABCC8" and "INS" genes are successful targets for changing treatments from insulin to sulfonamides therapy.

- Introduction: Within this study a two month old male was admitted into the intensive care unit, because the he was showing signs of diabetic ketoacidosis. Other symptoms include, respiratory tract infection, sporous, dehydration, reduced subcutaneous fat, Candida mucous infection. The infant's family history was negative for diseases of importance to hereditary and the eldest sibling was healthy.

- Experiment: The current treatment plan consist of therapy for ketoacidosis was started upon admissions into the hospital. Also, subcutaneous insulin was given (0.025-0.05 units/kg/h) and adjusted to the glycaemic profiles and the patient was converted to euglycaemic state. After 24 hours, oral intake of insulin started and treatment continued with subcutaneous short acting insulin then intermediate acting insulin plus 2 dosage of short acting insulin. A genetic analysis was conducted for NDM and mutation of KCNJ11, "ABCC8" and "INS" genes have been given. Sequence analysis showed a rare heterogeneous missense mutation, PF577L, in the patient's exon 12 of ABCC8 gene. This confirms diagnosis of NDM caused by heterozygous mutation in the SUR1 subunit of the pancreatic ATP-sensitive potassium channel, because his parents' white blood cells did not show signs of this mutation.

- Results: Switching from the insulin therapy to the sulfonamides was a successful treatment. It is the current regimen used to treat NDM.

- Discussion/Conclusion: ABCC8 gene produces SUR1 protein subunit that interacts with pancreatic ATP-sensitive potassium channel. When the channel opens a large amount of insulin is released. Mutations that occur in ABCC8 are associated with congential hyperinsulinism and PNDM or TNDM. Patients that have mutations in their potassium channel, improved their glucose levels with sulfonylurea regimen and glibenclamide showed successful results in managing glucose levels as well.

- A 2006 study showed that 90% of patients with a KCNJ11 mutation were able to successfully transition to sulfonylurea therapy.

In many cases, neonatal diabetes may be treated with oral sulfonylureas such as glyburide. Physicians may order genetic tests to determine whether or not transitioning from insulin to sulfonylurea drugs is appropriate for a patient.

The transfer from insulin injections to oral glibenclamide therapy seems highly effective for most patients and safe. This illuminates how the molecular understanding of some monogenic form of diabetes may lead to an unexpected change of the treatment in children. This is a spectacular example of how the pharmacogenomic approach improves in a tremendous way the quality of life of the young diabetic patients.

Insulin Therapy

- Long Acting Insulin: (Insulin glargine)-is a hormone that works by lowering levels of blood glucose. It starts to work several hours after an injection and keeps working for 24 hours. It is used to manage blood glucose of diabetics. It is used to treat Type 1 and 2 diabetes in adults and Type 1 diabetes in kids as young as 6 years old.

- Short Acting Insulin (e.g. Novolin or Velosulin)-It works similarly to natural insulin and takes up to 30 minutes and lasts for about 8 hours depending on the dosage used.

- Intermediate Insulin: (e.g. NPH insulin)- Usually taken in combination with a short acting insulin. Intermediate acting insulin starts to activate within the first hour of injecting and enters a period of peak activity lasting for 7 hours.

Sulfonylureas

- Sulfonylureas: This medication signals the pancreas to release insulin and help the body's cells use insulin better. This medicaiton can lower A1C levels ( AIC is defined as a measurement of the blood glucose after previous 2–3 months) by 1-2%.

In some forms of MODY, standard treatment is appropriate, though exceptions occur:

- In MODY2, oral agents are relatively ineffective and insulin is unnecessary.

- In MODY1 and MODY3, insulin may be more effective than drugs to increase insulin sensitivity.

- Sulfonylureas are effective in the K channel forms of neonatal-onset diabetes. The mouse model of MODY diabetes suggested that the reduced clearance of sulfonylureas stands behind their therapeutic success in human MODY patients, but Urbanova et al. found that human MODY patients respond differently to the mouse model and that there was no consistent decrease in the clearance of sulfonylureas in randomly selected HNF1A-MODY and HNF4A-MODY patients.

Chronic hyperglycemia due to any cause can eventually cause blood vessel damage and the microvascular complications of diabetes. The principal treatment goals for people with MODY — keeping the blood sugars as close to normal as possible ("good glycemic control"), while minimizing other vascular risk factors — are the same for all known forms of diabetes.

The tools for management are similar for all forms of diabetes: blood testing, changes in diet, physical exercise, oral hypoglycemic agents, and insulin injections. In many cases these goals can be achieved more easily with MODY than with ordinary types 1 and 2 diabetes. Some people with MODY may require insulin injections to achieve the same glycemic control that another person may attain with careful eating or an oral medication.

When oral hypoglycemic agents are used in MODY, the sulfonylureas remain the oral medication of first resort. When compared to patients with type 2 diabetes, MODY patients are often more sensitive to sulphonylureas, such that a lower dose should be used to initiate treatment to avoid hypoglycaemia. Patients with MODY less often suffer from obesity and insulin resistance than those with ordinary type 2 diabetes (for whom insulin sensitizers like metformin or the thiazolidinediones are often preferred over the sulfonylureas).

There have been 30 cases of Marden-Walker Syndrome reported since 1966. The first case of this was in 1966 a female infant was diagnosed with blepharophimosis, joint contractures, arachnodactyly and growth development delay. She ended up passing at 3 months due to pneumonia.

The most common method to manage hypoglycemia and diabetes is with an insulin pump. . However in infants and very young children long acting insulins like Glargine and Levemir are preferred to prevent recurrent hypoglycemia . As soon as parent knows Walcott-Rallison syndrome is the source, treatment or therapy plans need to be drawn up along with frequent check ins to make sure kidney and liver functions are around normal and insulin therapy are working. If needed, the patient can undergo thyroxin therapy in order to maintain proper thyroid stimulating hormone levels. This has only been needed in a few cases were hypothyroidism was present in the patient.

The only treatment for MWS is only symptomatic, with multidisciplinary management

With appropriate treatment and management, patients with Weaver syndrome appear to do well, both physically and intellectually, throughout their life and have a normal lifespan. Their adult height is normal as well.

Kleefstra syndrome affects males and females equally and approximately, 75% of all documented cases are caused by Eu-HMTase1 disruptions while only 25% are caused by 9q34.3 deletions. There are no statistics on the effect the disease has on life expectancy due to the lack of information available.

Due to its recent discovery, there are currently no existing treatments for Kleefstra syndrome.

In adults, fibrates and statins have been prescribed to treat hyperglycerolemia by lowering blood glycerol levels. Fibrates are a class of drugs that are known as amphipathic carboxylic acids that are often used in combination with Statins. Fibrates work by lowering blood triglyceride concentrations. When combined with statins, the combination will lower LDL cholesterol, lower blood triglycerides and increase HDL cholesterol levels.

If hyperglycerolemia is found in a young child without any family history of this condition, then it may be difficult to know whether the young child has the symptomatic or benign form of the disorder. Common treatments include: a low-fat diet, IV glucose if necessary, monitor for insulin resistance and diabetes, evaluate for Duchenne muscular dystrophy, adrenal insufficiency & developmental delay.

The Genetic and Rare Diseases Information Center (GARD) does not list any treatments at this time.

There is no cure available for Weaver syndrome. However, with multidisciplinary management such as neurological, pediatric, orthopedic, and psychomotor care and genetic counseling, symptoms can be managed. Surgery may be used to correct any skeletal issues. Physical and occupational therapy are considered an option to help with muscle tone. Also, speech therapy is often recommended for speech related problems.

Ketosis-prone diabetes or KPD is an intermediate form of diabetes that has some characteristics of type 1 and some of type 2 diabetes. However, it is distinct from latent autoimmune diabetes, a form of type 1 sometimes referred to as type 1.5.

KPD is readily diagnosible because it presents a single characteristic, ketoacidosis, which if present, confirms it as ketosis-prone diabetes. KPD comes in four forms depending upon the presence or absence of β-cell autoantibodies (A+ or A−) and β-cell functional reserve (β+ or β−).

Wolcott–Rallison syndrome, WRS, is a rare, autosomal recessive disorder with infancy-onset diabetes mellitus, multiple epiphyseal dysplasia, osteopenia, mental retardation or developmental delay, and hepatic and renal dysfunction as main clinical findings. Patients with WRS have mutations in the EIF2AK3 gene, which encodes the pancreatic eukaryotic translation initiation factor 2-alpha kinase 3.

There is no treatment for FTHS, though identification of TKS4 mutation as a causative factor may eventually provide new opportunities for neonatal screening in high-risk families.

Two international research studies are currently underway. The International Genetic Study done with the Spinner Laboratory at The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia studies the ring 20 chromosome at the molecular level. The Clinical Research Study collects clinical information from parents to create a database of about the full spectrum of patients with ring chromosome 20 syndrome.

Treatment is symptomatic, often addressing indicators associated with peripheral pulmonary artery stenosis. Laryngotracheal calcification resulting in dyspnea and forceful breathing can be treated with bronchodilators including the short and long-acting β2-agonists, and various anticholinergics. Prognosis is good, yet life expectancy depends on the severity and extent of diffuse pulmonary and arterial calcification.

The ketogenic diet is a high fat, low carbohydrate diet reserved for intractable childhood epilepsies. There are no published reports on the use of the ketogenic diet in patients with ring chromosome 20 syndrome. However, its efficacy and safety are well established in other difficult to control epilepsy syndromes.

According to Clinicaltrials.gov, there are no current studies on hyperglycerolemia.

Clinicaltrials.gov is a service of the U.S. National Institutes of Health. Recent research shows patients with high concentrations of blood triglycerides have an increased risk of coronary heart disease. Normally, a blood glycerol test is not ordered. The research was about a child having elevated levels of triglycerides when in fact the child had glycerol kinase deficiency. This condition is known as pseudo-hypertriglyceridemia, a falsely elevated condition of triglycerides. Another group treated patients with elevated concentrations of blood triglycerides with little or no effect on reducing the triglycerides. A few laboratories can test for high concentrations of glycerol, and some laboratories can compare a glycerol-blanked triglycerides assay with the routine non-blanked method. Both cases show how the human body may exhibit features suggestive of a medical disorder when in fact it is another medical condition causing the issue.

Miller-Dieker occurs in less than one in 100000 people and can occur in all races.

A number of features found with Nasodigitoacoustic syndrome can be managed or treated. Sensorineural hearing loss in humans may be caused by a loss of hair cells (sensory receptors in the inner ear that are associated with hearing). This can be hereditary and/or within a syndrome, as is the case with nasodigitoacoustic syndrome, or attributed to infections such as viruses. For the management of sensorineural hearing loss, hearing aids have been used. Treatments, depending upon the cause and severity, may include a pharmacological approach (i.e., the use of certain steroids), or surgical intervention, like a cochlear implant.

Pulmonary, or pulmonic stenosis is an often congenital narrowing of the pulmonary valve; it can be present in nasodigitoacoustic-affected infants. Treatment of this cardiac abnormality can require surgery, or non-surgical procedures like balloon valvuloplasty (widening the valve with a balloon catheter).

It has been suggested that a possible method of treatment for histidinemia is through the adoption of a diet that is low in histidine intake. However, the requirement for such dietary restrictions is typically unnecessary for 99% of all cases of histidinemia.

Most patients suffering from KTS have epilepsy that is resistant to anti-epileptic agents. Some patients showed a partial response to treatment, but very few were able to stop their epilepsy through treatment. One case was responsive to treatment using Phenobartbital and vigabatrin which are both anti-epileptic agents. Spasticity can be treated with baclofen, but not all patients are responsive to the treatment.

In 1974, Dr. Tönz brought an infant suffering from a fatal brain disease to the attention of Alfried Kohlschütter. The infant's symptoms included loss of motor skills, mental disability, epilepsy, and missing enamel. The infant also showed signs of myelin breakdown and did not produce the same amount of sweat as a normal person which resulted in the development of the term amelo-cerebro-hypohydrotic syndrome. A connection between the neurological and enamel symptoms is unknown.

Treatment plans will vary depending on the severity of the condition and its evidences in each patient.

Areas that will probably need to be evaluated and assessed include speech, vision, hearing and EEG. Treatment measures may include physical therapy, occupational therapy, Speech therapy, anti-seizure drugs and orthotic devices. Surgery may be needed to assuage spastic motor problems. Various supportive measures such as joint contractures that could prevent complications.

Genetic counseling may also be recommended