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Phenylketonuria is an inherited genetic disorder. It is caused by mutations in the PAH gene, which can result in inefficient or nonfunctional phenylalanine hydroxylase, an enzyme responsible for the metabolism of excess phenylalanine. This results in the buildup of dietary phenylalanine to potentially toxic levels.
Hyperphenylalaninemia is a medical condition characterized by mildly or strongly elevated concentrations of the amino acid phenylalanine in the blood. Phenylketonuria (PKU) can result in severe hyperphenylalaninemia. [2] Phenylalanine concentrations are routinely screened in newborns by the neonatal heel prick (Guthrie test), which takes a few ...
Newborn screening programs initially used screening criteria based largely on criteria established by JMG Wilson and F. Jungner in 1968. [6] Although not specifically about newborn population screening programs, their publication, Principles and practice of screening for disease proposed ten criteria that screening programs should meet before being used as a public health measure.
The blood of a two-week-old infant is collected for a Phenylketonuria, or PKU, screening. The neonatal heel prick is a blood collection procedure done on newborns. It consists of making a pinprick puncture in one heel of the newborn to collect their blood. This technique is used frequently as the main way to collect blood from neonates.
The primary treatment for PKU includes a lifelong diet that is strictly low in phenylalanine. A low-phenylalanine diet avoids high-protein foods like meat, dairy, nuts, and certain grains.
E.g., reduction of dietary protein remains a mainstay of treatment for phenylketonuria and other amino acid disorders; Dietary supplementation or replacement E.g., oral ingestion of cornstarch several times a day helps prevent people with glycogen storage diseases from becoming seriously hypoglycemic. Medications
Metabolism. Newborn screening. Robert Guthrie, MD, Ph.D. (June 28, 1916 – June 24, 1995) was an American microbiologist, best known for developing the bacterial inhibition assay used to screen infants for phenylketonuria at birth, before the development of irreversible neurological damage. [1] Guthrie also pioneered the collection of whole ...
Early in his career Levy began a close collaboration with Robert Guthrie, the founder of newborn screening. Recognizing a gap between public health newborn screening and the medical community, he became the first physician to combine newborn screening with the diagnosis, treatment and research of the disorders identified by screening.