Anti-Inflammatory Drugs Aid DMD Mice

Mice missing the dystrophin protein and showing a disease resembling Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) that received the anti-inflammatory drug etanercept (Enbrel) were significantly protected against exercise-related muscle damage, say researchers at the University of Western Australia in Crawley.

Stuart Hodgetts and colleagues, who published their findings in the October issue of Neuromuscular Disorders, injected etanercept into adult mice exposed to an exercise wheel for 48 hours and compared their muscle samples to those of untreated animals.

Muscle fibers from the upper legs of the treated mice showed much less inflammation and better cell survival than did those of the untreated mice. The investigators reference an earlier study in which the drug infliximab (Remicade), another anti-inflammatory agent, had similar benefits in dystrophin-deficient mouse muscles.

The authors say that etanercept and infliximab, both of which are approved in the United States for other conditions and have fewer side effects than the corticosteroids now used in DMD, might be useful “to reduce the severity of the disease in DMD and other dystrophies,” although they caution that “the merit of using these and other emerging, highly targeted anti-inflammatory drugs ... remains to be demonstrated.”