Evaluation of carrier detection rates for Duchenne and Becker muscular dystrophies using serum creatine-kinase (CK) and pyruvate-kinase (PK) through discriminant analysis.

Serum pyruvate-kinase (PK) and creatine-kinase (CK) determinations have been carried out in a sample of 100 obligate carriers for the Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) gene, 23 obligate carriers for the Becker muscular dystrophy (BMD) gene, and 50 normal adult control women. Blood samples were collected from all subjects three times on three independent occasions and the means of these three determinations were considered for both PK and CK activities in the statistical analysis. Discriminant analysis has shown that, in the group of carriers for the DMD gene, the estimated misclassification frequencies (M.F.) using either serum CK, PK, or both enzymes were: 26.5% for CK alone, 19.5% for PK alone, and 19% for both enzymes. In the group of carriers for the BMD gene, the estimated proportions of M.F. were: 31.7% for CK alone, 23.8% for PK alone, and 20.4% for both enzymes. It is concluded that, although a proportion of carries still remains undetected, the use of serum PK determinations enhances the capability of detecting carriers of both DMD and BMD mainly when compared with serum CK alone.