Early myocardial disease and cramping myalgia in Becker‐type muscular dystrophy

Abstract
A clinical and morphologic study concerning a kindred with slowly progressive X-linked muscular dystrophy (Becker type) is presented. Five males were affected; 1 died of heart failure at age 16. Severe and early cardiac disorder is unusual in this type of muscular dystrophy, and death at such an early age had not been previously reported. In the other patients of the kindred, cardiac abnormalties, if present at all, were nonspecific. Another unusual features in this kindred was severe muscle pain at an early stage of the disease, a feature that cannot yet be explained.