Prevention Diagnosis And Treatment Of Rare Disorders

Rare diseases collectively affect millions of Americans of all ages, but developing drugs and medical devices to prevent, diagnose, and treat these conditions is challenging. The Institute of Medicine (IOM) recommends implementing an integrated national strategy to promote rare diseases research and product development.

Rare Diseases and Orphan Drugs shows that much of what we now know about common diseases has been achieved by studying rare diseases. It proposes that future advances in the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of common diseases will come as a consequence of our accelerating progress in the field of rare diseases. Understanding the complex steps in the development of common diseases, such as cancer, cardiovascular disease, and metabolic diseases, has proven a difficult problem. Rare diseases, however, are often caused by aberrations of a single gene. In rare diseases, we may study how specific genetic defects can trigger a series of events that lead to the expression of a particular disease. Often, the disease process manifested in a certain rare disease is strikingly similar to the disease process observed in a common disease. This work ties the lessons learned about rare diseases to our understanding of common ones. Chapters covering the number of common diseases are minimized, while rare diseases are introduced as single diseases or as members of diseases classes. After reading this book, readers will appreciate how further research into the rare diseases may lead to new methods for preventing, diagnosing, and treating all diseases, rare or common. Makes rare diseases relevant to clinicians and researchers by tying lessons learned about the rare diseases to our understanding of the common diseases Stresses basic pathologic mechanisms that account for human disease (e.g., disorders of cell development, replication, maintenance, function and structure), that can be understood without prior training in pathology Discusses advanced concepts in molecular biology and genetics in a simple, functional context appropriate for medical trainees and new researchers Offers insights into how further research into rare diseases may lead to new methods for preventing, diagnosing, and treating all diseases.

NORD Guide to Rare Disorders is a comprehensive, practical, authoritative guide to the diagnosis and management of more than 800 rare diseases. The diseases are discussed in a uniform, easy-to-follow format--a brief description, signs and symptoms, etiology, related disorders, epidemiology, standard treatment, investigational treatment, resources, and references.The book includes a complete directory of orphan drugs, a full-color atlas of visual diagnostic signs, and a Master Resource List of support groups and helpful organizations. An index of symptoms and key words offers physicians valuable assistance in finding the information they need quickly.

A rare disease is any disease or condition that affects a small percentage of the population. Many rare conditions are life-threatening or chronically debilitating, and unfortunately do not have appropriate treatments, rendering them incurable. In recent years, there has been substantial development in the area of rare disease research and its clinical applications, for instance, rare disease biology and genomics, epidemiology and preventions, early detection and screening, and diagnosis and treatment. In this context, this book consolidates the recent advances in rare disease biology and therapeutics, covering a wide spectrum of interrelated topics, and disseminates this essential knowledge in a comprehensible way to a greater scientific and clinical audience as well as patients, caregivers, and drug and device manufacturers, especially to support rare disease product development. Chapters cover such diseases as Felty’s syndrome, Löfgren’s syndrome, mesothelioma, epidermolysis bullosa, and more. This book is a valuable resource not only for medical and allied health students but also for researchers, clinical and nurse geneticists, genetic counselors, and physician assistants.

This book focuses on predictive, preventative and personalized medicine (PPPM) and how it is related to the healthcare of rare diseases. Readers will discover how advanced rare diseases healthcare provides an excellent “proof-of-principles” for the personalisation of healthcare systems on a global scale. Chapters look at national plans for rare disease, at biobanking, gene identification, rare cancers, virus gene therapy , induced pluripotency for cell therapy amongst other topics. There is a chapter dedicated to personalized medicine for hereditary deafness and another exploring the complexity of genotype-phenotype correlations. Specific diseases such as Fabry's, Gauchers and mitochondrial cytopathies are highlighted and we look at enzyme replacement therapy in lysosomal storage diseases. This work is part of a series, produced with the involvement of the European Association for Predictive, Preventive and Personalised Medicine. The series focusses on the concept of an integrative medical approach by PPPM. This volume is dedicated to all aspects related to the prediction, prevention and personalised treatments of rare diseases, and in doing so it explores developments relevant to all medical branches. The authors cover ethical considerations, the creation of a robust platform for professional communication, synergies with patient organisations, “doctor-patient” collaboration and a new philosophy of integrative medicine by PPPM. This volume serves as a reference source for scientific and medical centres in the field and can be used both at medical curricula and graduate level in the life sciences. Those who place a special emphasis on healthcare promotion and innovations intended to combat rare diseases, save the affected lives and enhance life quality will all find this book of great value.

In our etiologic research, we epidemiologists need to leave behind the concepts of ‘cohort’ study and ‘case–control’ study and adopt that of the etiologic study as the singular substitute for these. With this sentence, the famous epidemiologist Professor Olli S. Miettinen began his personal re ection on the future of the epidemiology [1]. He sought to highlight the fact that the role of the epidemiologist should be mainly focused on aetiological research. Nevertheless, the widespread idea still exists that epidemiology is limited to purely providing gures and descriptive data on the frequency and distribution of disease. Indeed, it is more than likely that the precise aim of those rst classic epidemiological steps, i. e. , methods essentially based on describing the distri- tion of a given disease, is still not all that well understood by many scientists, let alone the general public. Such descriptions seek to generate hypotheses and afford explanations for key factors (be these risk factors or the presumable causes th- selves), which might justify differences in terms of persons, time or place and, in turn, ultimately serve to develop preventive measures and/or gain quality-adjusted life years. To restrict the goals of epidemiology to activities exclusively concerned with reporting gures or even complex statistical results is a great mistake, one that renders it dif cult to take full advantage of the epidemiologist’s true role, which is “to study disease determinants and to assess the actual impact of factors involved in their development, distribution and dissemination”.

The fields of rare diseases research and orphan products development continue to expand with more products in research and development status. In recent years, the role of the patient advocacy groups has evolved into a research partner with the academic research community and the bio-pharmaceutical industry. Unique approaches to research and development require epidemiological data not previously available to assist in protocol study design and patient recruitment for clinical trials required by regulatory agencies prior to approval for access by patents and practicing physicians.