[Database for patients with Duchenne muscular dystrophy].

We had a plan to arrange database for patients with Duchenne muscular dystrophy in Japan. The purpose of this projects will make it possible to design accurate and serial evaluation of patients and conduct therapeutic trial. The items of input are composed of two cards. One card is basic card which fills out mainly patients' basic and genetic informations, the other is course card which records symptoms, muscle strength, joint range of motion, laboratory studies including pulmonary function testing and therapeutic trials. These cards are written by physicians of dystrophic wards in national hospital twice a year and are sent to the statistical coordinating center of database. On the other hand outputs include annual report and optional output which are requested by each investigator. Now 519 basic cards and 1026 course cards have completed. In this paper we tried to output about some results of the data obtained. These outputs include the age of initial gait and difficulty in walking, mean muscle strength by functional grade and the change of muscle strength during the administration of some drugs.