Autosomal Recessive Duchenne-Like Muscular Dystrophy in Arabs

Abstract

A Kuwaiti brother and sister (with 4 sibs and 4 half sibs), products of a consanguineous marriage of second-degree cousins, showed a clinical, biochemical, electromyographic, and histopathological profile of pseudohypertrophic Duchenne muscular dystrophy with normal chromosome constitution. The findings support the concept of severe progressive limb-girdle muscular dystrophy with autosomal recessive inheritance. Preliminary studies of DNA samples by cDNA probes from the Duchenne/Becker locus have ruled out a possible deletion of the X-chromosome. This disease is rare in Britain and North America, but is more common in inbred Arab communities and in people originally from Switzerland.