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Previous Volume 359:1403-1405 September 25, 2008 Number 13 Next

	Since this article has no abstract, we have provided an extract of the first 100 words of the full text and any section headings.

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Duchenne's muscular dystrophy is a devastating, progressive, X-linked muscle-wasting disease. It is the most common form of muscular dystrophy, affecting 1 in 3500 boys. With an onset in early childhood, the disease progresses to final stages that are characterized by cardiorespiratory failure and death, which usually occurs in the teenage years or early 20s. The disease affects striated muscles of the limbs, diaphragm, and heart and is associated with a progressive loss of muscle mass, leading to impaired ambulation and paralysis. Skeletal myofibers degenerate and undergo necrosis; muscles progressively accumulate calcium deposits and are replaced by connective tissue and fat.

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Source Information

From Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, CA.

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