Italian clinicians report their experience in the endoscopic exploration of swallowing disorders in patients with type 1 proximal spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) who have not been gastrostomised and are receiving innovative therapy:
- 10 children underwent oropharyngeal fibroscopy and six of them underwent additional radiological exploration (video-fluoroscopy),
- functional scales were used to measure the risk of aspiration and the efficiency of the deglutatory phase,
- these parameters were significantly impaired in the vast majority of patients.
Despite being invasive, these approaches are still the most effective for assessing this part of bulbar function in the most severe forms of SMA.
