There are a number of potential treatments that are currently being tested or have just undergone testing including magnesium, etidronate, PPi, and tissue-nonspecific alkaline phosphatase inhibitors.Given that ABCC6 heterozygous mutations result in few symptoms of PXE, this disease is a candidate for gene therapy. Some initial proof-of-principle experiments have been done in mice that have relieved some of symptoms of PXE, but as with all gene therapy treatments, there are many hurdles that must be over come including insuring that the treatment will be long-lasting and reducing the risk of insertional mutagenesis and severe immune reactions. Epidemiology
The reported prevalence of pseudoxanthoma elasticum is about 1:25,000. Females are twice as likely to be affected as males. The disease occurs in all ethnicities, but Afrikaners are more likely to have PXE as a result of a founder effect (i.e., higher prevalence in the small group of people from whom Afrikaners descend). History
The first description of PXE that distinguished it from other xanthoma conditions was by Dr Ferdinand-Jean Darrier in 1896. The eponym "Grönblad-Strandberg syndrome" is used in older literature, after two physicians who made further discoveries in the disease manifestations.PXE has the distinction of being the only disease for which a layperson is the discover of the mutated gene. The ABCC6 gene mutation was discovered simultaneously by four research teams, all of which published at the same time. The principal investigators were (in order of the date of publication): Jouni Uitto, Arthur Bergen, Charles Boyd, and Klaus Lindpainter.
These blood vessels sometimes leak, and these retinal hemorrhages may lead to the loss of central vision. Vision loss is a major issue in many PXE patients.PXE may affect the gastrointestinal and cardiovascular systems. Gastrointestinal bleeding is a rare symptom and usually involved bleeding from the stomach. In the circulatory system, intermittent claudication, a condition in which cramping pain in the leg is induced by exercise, is a prominent feature. At later stages, coronary artery disease may develop, leading to angina and myocardial infarction (heart attack). Cerebral ischemia in PXE is caused by small vessel occlusive disease. Other rare neurological complications may include intracranial aneurysms, subarachnoid and intracerebral hemorrhages. Genetics
80% of clinical cases of pseudoxanthoma elasticum have detectable mutations in the ABCC6 gene. Mutations in almost all parts of the gene have been described, of all types (missense, nonsense, splice alteration, insertion, small deletion or large deletion). Although there have been reports of autosomal dominant inheritance, the inheritance is typically autosomal recessive (both parents need to be carriers, and there is a 25% chance that a child will inherit both abnormal copies of the gene and therefore develop the condition).Strong genetic linkage was found with mutations in the ABCC6 gene, which codes for the ABCC6 protein, which is a membrane transporter from the large ATP-binding cassette transporter family. The protein is expressed in most organs, but mainly in the liver and kidney. ABCC6 mediates ATP release in the liver.