Pyruvate dehydrogenase deficiency in a young boy: a clinical case

BACKGROUND: Pyruvate dehydrogenase deficit is a severe hereditary mitochondrial metabolic disease characterized by impaired energy metabolism and manifested by a wide range of neurological symptoms. The difficulty in selecting therapy is due to insufficient data on the management of children with this pathology owing to death at an early age and insufficient diagnosis during life. The accurate prevalence of the disease is unknown, presumably <1 in 1,000,000, which makes it attributable to orphan diseases.

CLINICAL CASE DESCRIPTION: This article presents a case of a child with a rare neurometabolic disease pyruvate dehydrogenase complex E1 deficiency. The diagnosis was suspected after his birth based on neurological symptoms, neonatal hyperammonemia, and hyperlactatemia and confirmed after exome sequencing, where a homozygous variant of the nucleotide sequence in the PDNA1 gene (X-19359612-C-E) was determined. At the age of 2 months, he began to receive a ketogenic diet — a high-fat, low-carbohydrate dry mixture for enteral nutrition, metabolic therapy, and Vit B1 (300 mg/day). The article presents indicators of biochemical blood testing, acid-base state of blood, and dynamics of the neurological picture during the period of observation of the patient.

CONCLUSION: Early diagnosis and initiation of therapy is crucial for the physical and neuropsychiatric development of children with this pathology. Despite the lack of highly effective etiotropic treatment, in some cases, an improvement in the clinical course is observed with the use of thiamine preparations and adherence to a ketogenic diet.