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Eastern Europe, Central Asia Regions Face Rapidly Expanding AIDS Epidemic.

Starpharma Collaborates with US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

Sanyo's New Water Technology to Suppress Avian Influenza Viruses.

Southeast Asian Countries Agree on Birdflu Plan.

US Researchers Identify How SARS Virus Infects.

Taiwan Researcher's Drug for Pompe Disease Approved in the US.

Singapore Researchers to Utilize Pharmaceuticals as Anti-foulants.

GSK Pulls out of Vaccine Plan in Taiwan.

AUSTRALIA – Mosquito Virus Hits Australia.

AUSTRALIA – Dairy Intake Could Aid Healthcare Budget.

AUSTRALIA – New Stem Cells could Fix Broken Hearts.

CHINA – Toxin Found in Chinese Milk.

CHINA – New Way to Detect Liver Cancer Earlier.

SINGAPORE – TTSH First to Perform Robotic Gastrectomy in SE Asia.

SINGAPORE – Doctor Uses Glove Instead of Port in Colon Surgery.

SINGAPORE – Singapore & China Scientists Perform Asian Genome-wide study on Kidney Disease.

TAIWAN – Biologists Generate Man-made Pluripotent Stem Cells to Aid Study of Pompe Disease.

SOUTH KOREA – Korea's Medical Policy Improvement Project for Foreign Patients.

OTHER REGIONS – Single Gene Links Rare Cancers.

OTHER REGIONS – Israeli Scientists Develop Cancer 'Cluster Bomb'.

Shire Championing the Cause for Patients with Rare Diseases.

ASEAN⁺ Rare Disease Network: Unifying Voices of Patients.

Rainbow Across Borders.

Genetic Counselling Services in Malaysia.

Background: Exogenous enzyme cannot cross the blood brain barrier to eliminate accumulated glycogen and brain involvement by Pompe disease is worth of attention before starting enzyme-replacement therapy.

Material And Methods: Before treatment, we recruited 10 infantile-onset Pompe patients and divided them into 2 groups. Group A (n = 6) had truncal hypotonia, while group B (n = 4) did not. The control group included another 10 age-matched subjects. The maps of first (EV1), second (EV2), and third eigenvalues (EV3), trace apparent diffusion coefficient, and fractional anisotropy (FA) were generated. We compared regions of interest in the right cerebellar peduncle, central pons, posterior limb of the right internal capsule, right thalamus, right superior corona radiata near the level of the lateral ventricular bodies, and genu and splenium of the corpus callosum between the Pompe patients and control subjects.

Results: On diffusion tensor images (DTIs), we found increased EV3 at the central pons (0.570 ± 0.116 versus 0.434 ± 0.154, p = 0.03) and genu of the corpus callosum (0.707 ± 0.181 versus. 0.447 ± 0.184, p = 0.03) in group A, but not in group B, as compared with age-matched controls. EV2 (0.961 ± 0.241 versus. 0.755 ± 0.138, p = 0.04) increased significantly but FA (0.485 ± 0.125 versus. 0.716 ± 0.121, p = 0.03) decreased significantly at the splenium of the corpus callosum of group A patients both not in group B.

Conclusion: In our Pompe patients younger than nine months, DTIs could not disclose significant changes of diffusion indices at the supratentorial white matters in group B patients without truncal hypotonia. Further progressive hypomyelination of supertentorial white matter may be prevented with adequate and early enzyme replacement treatment applied to infant-onset Pompe patients.