Heart Drug Eases Pain of Rare Disease
An older medication originally approved to treat heart problems eases pain and stiffness from a very rare muscle disease, a new study reports. The findings are good news not only for the relatively small number of people around the world estimated to have the disease—nondystrophic myotonia—but also for many other patients who have one of the thousands of other diseases that are very rare, neurologists say. “This study can serve as a blueprint for future rare disease research,” says Jeffrey Statland, senior instructor in neurology at the University of Rochester Medical Center and the first author of the paper published in the Oct. 3 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.
