ALS ; Doctors Find Quicker Way to ID Paralyzing Disease

April 20, 2004

tion=news

Doctors Find Quicker Way to ID Paralyzing Disease

Mon Apr 19, 2004 01:43 PM ET

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. researchers said on Monday they had found a

quicker way to diagnose a paralyzing muscle disease called ALS, perhaps in

time for drugs to delay its fatal progression.

Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or Lou Gehrig's disease, is usually diagnosed

after a patient has been suffering from its symptoms for months. ALS, part

of a group of diseases called Motor Neuron Disease, causes progressive

paralysis but the symptoms are not clear at first.

A team at the University of Pittsburgh said they had identified a kind of

protein fingerprint, called a biomarker, that can tell right away that

someone has the deadly and incurable condition.

One drug, Rilutek, known generically as riluzole, is approved for use in

treating ALS patients and some studies have suggested it works best when

used early.

Dr. Bowser and colleagues examined the cerebrospinal fluid of 25

patients recently diagnosed with ALS and 35 people without ALS.

Some of ALS-free " controls " had other neurological diseases that looked

something like ALS, including muscle weakness and loss of motor function.

Bowser's team used protein chips and computer programs to identify a pattern

of protein activity that was unique to the ALS patients.

Proteins are produced by cells based on genetic instructions and perform all

the body's functions.

The 10 proteins and their pattern of production could make for an easy ALS

test that could give an answer within a few hours, Bowser told a meeting of

the American Physiological Society, part of a larger conference in

Washington called Experimental Biology 2004.

The new assay needs to be given to larger groups, while separate tests also

need to be carried out to see if it can predict who, with early symptoms,

has ALS before they are formally diagnosed.

Bowser's team is also working to find out what each of the proteins does,

specifically, in cells.

ALS affects an estimated 100,000 people worldwide and at least 5,000 people

are diagnosed every year in the United States.

The baseball player Lou Gehrig, with whom ALS is most commonly associated,

died of the disease in 1941.

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