The term muscular dystrophy covers a diverse group of inherited disorders characterized by
progressive muscle weakness and wasting in which the primary defect becomes
symptomatic in skeletal muscle. Recent studies have demonstrated that there is marked
clinical similarity among patients with genetically different diseases, sug-gesting that the
gene products may participate in a common functional structure or biochemical cascade.
Accumulated patient data indicate that the clinical spectrum of the limb—girdle muscular …