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Hearing aid trials are recommended for people with Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease (CMT), as hearing problems are variable in this patient population, a study reports. Patients showed particular difficulty in hearing high frequencies, and in understanding speech when there was a noisy background, the researchers reported. “[R]eferral to audiology for a…

Mice carrying a mutation identical to that producing an early-onset, severe form of Charcot-Marie-Tooth (CMT) disease fed with a neutral lipid-enriched diet showed improved myelinization (the growth of the protective layer myelin around nerve fibers) and less peripheral nerve damage, a study found. Such results indicate a potential benefit of…

Defects in PMP22, the protein involved in Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease type 1A (CMT1A), might play a role in the loss of myelin — the fatty substance that protects nerve fibers — associated with multiple sclerosis (MS), according to a case report. The case report study, “A…

Two boys with neurological deficits suggestive of acute ischemic stroke were ultimately diagnosed with Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease type X (CMTX) following the detection of white matter lesions characteristic with the disorder, a recent case report shows. The study, “X-linked Charcot-Marie-Tooth Disease Presenting with Stuttering Stroke-like Symptoms,”…

Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease (CMT) is one of the most common inherited neuropathies, affecting an estimated 150,000 Americans. But very few people outside the CMT community have ever heard of the illness. Estela Lugo says that’s partly because of its funny name. “No one knows what it is, and because the…

A new international consortium based in Paris, and funded largely by the 28-member European Union, intends to speed the diagnosis of rare diseases, while also accelerating the development of treatments for the 95% of such illnesses that currently don’t have one. The European Joint Programme on Rare Diseases (EJP…