Glutaric Aciduria Type 1 - Epistemology

Epistemology

GA1 can be described as a metabolic disease, a neurometabolic disease, a cerebral palsy or a basal ganglia disorder (it is also misdiagnosed as shaken baby syndrome). Depending on the paradigm adopted, GA1 will mostly be managed with precursor restriction or with neurorehabilitation (or with incarceration of the parents in the case of presumed shaken baby syndrome).

So-called "orphan diseases", such as GA1, can be adopted into wider groups of diseases (such as carnitine deficiency diseases, cerebral palsies of diverse origins, basal ganglia disorders, and others); Morton at al. (2003b) emphasize that acute striatal necrosis is a distinctive pathologic feature of at least 20 other disorders of very different etiologies (e.g. HIV encephalopathy-AIDS dementia complex, pneumococcal meningitis, hypoadrenal crisis, methylmalonic acidemia, propionic acidemia, middle cerebral artery occlusion, hypertensive vasculopathy, acute mycoplasma pneumoniae infection, 3-nitropropionic acid intoxication, late onset familial dystonia, cerebrovascular abrupt and severe neonatal asphyxia ("selective neuronal necrosis")).

Amongst 279 patients who had been reported to have GA1, 185 were symptomatic (two thirds); being symptomatic was seen as an indication of "low treatment efficacy". High risk screening, neonatal screening and a diagnosis of macrocephaly were the ways to identify bearers of the GCDH' defective gene who weren't frankly symptomatic. Macrocephaly remains the main sign of GA1 for those who aren't related to GA1 in any way or benefit from no screening program. GA1 was considered as a "treatable disease". Two thirds of the patients who have GA1 will receive little benefit from the treatment for GA1 but can benefit from treatments given to victims of middle cerebral artery occlusion, AIDS dementia and other basal ganglia disorders: brain implants, stem cell neurorestauration, growth factors, monoaminergic agents, and many other neurorehabilitation strategies.