SEATTLE – KIRO 7 has learned of a revolutionary treatment, here in Seattle, that has saved the lives of dogs and is just months away from being tested in children. In video obtained by KIRO 7, dogs that were destined to die show no signs of the disease after a single infusion of gene-replacement therapy. The disease is so deadly in children, 50-percent of them die before their second birthday.
“This is a huge deal. This is probably the most important thing we’ll ever work on,” said Dr. Casey Childers of UW Medicine.
For the past eight years, Childers has been focused on finding a cure for a form of muscular dystrophy called Myotubular Myopathy or MTM. It is a rare disease that affects the skeletal muscles.
“Patients are unable to walk. They’re unable to speak, unable to swallow and unable to breathe without assistance. It’s a childhood disease. It affects baby boys and it’s universally fatal. So it’s a bad, bad disease,” said Childers.
Myotubular Myopathy affects dogs, too. In UW Medicine video, never seen by the public until now, gene-replacement therapy has resulted in a remarkable transformation in dogs and a possible cure for MTM.
>>Videos of children, dogs with Myotubular Myopathy
The search for a cure began with the search for a dog by a mother in Jacksonville, Florida. The son of Alison and Paul Frase was born with Myotubular Myopathy. Joshua Frase was born on February 2, 1995 with a devastating prognosis.
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