Résumé :
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Communication n° 152 Background : Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) it's an X-linked recessive neuromuscular disorder, it causes progressive muscular weakness and wheelchair dependency before 13 years of age. No definitive treatment exists and a number of studies have shown that drugs as prednisone improves the strength and function of patients with DMD, however, with many secondary effects. Carnitine has a role in mitochondrial energy metabolism; it is required for the transport of long chain fatty acids into mitochondria and has been hypothesized to improve exercise performance in healthy subjects. Objective : The aim of this study was to improve muscle fatigue resistance with the administration of carnitine in DMD patients. Patients and Methods : A double blind randomized controlled trial was conducted, two groups of ten DMD subjects, carnitine and placebo, were included. Carnitine and placebo solutions had the same presentation and the doses were 50mg/kg/day. Clinical muscular evaluation and superficial electromyography (SEMG); peak-peak amplitude and root mean squared; were evaluated at the beginning, 1, 4, and 12 months. Statistical analysis was done with ANOVA for repeated measures. Results : We didn't found statistical significant differences in SEMG parameters; however, we found differences in 10 of 14 muscles clinically evaluated in upper limbs and 8 of 24 in lower limbs. Conclusions : To our knowledge there are not previous studies who evaluate carnitine as an alternative in the management of DMD patients. There is no differences in SEMG, however at the end of the study we observed, subjectively, improve in resistance fatigue in carnitine group, we couldn't evaluate this with the methods employed; we proposed spectroscopy to evaluate the fatigue resistance and increase the carnitine dose.
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