Alpha-sarcoglycanopathy previously misdiagnosed as Duchenne muscular dystrophy: implications for current diagnostics and patient care.

Differential diagnosis of limb-girdle muscular dystrophy, including alpha-sarcoglycanopathy and Duchenne muscular dystrophy, is impossible to acheive on clinical grounds alone; therefore immunohistology, Western blotting and molecular genetic analysis are manadatory for a correct diagnosis. The patient's genotype with a hitherto unknown mutation (Tyr134STOP) in exon 5 adds to the growing spectrum of mutations in the alpha-sarcoglycan gene.