Gene/Protein Disease Symptom Drug Enzyme Compound
Pivot Concepts:   Target Concepts:
Query: UMLS:C0026838 (spasticity)
 6,471 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

Since its introduction in the late 1970s for the treatment of strabismus and blepharospasm, botulinum toxin (BoNT) has been increasingly used in the interventional treatment of several other disorders characterized by excessive or inappropriate muscle contractions. The use of this pluripotential agent has extended to a plethora of conditions including: focal dystonia; spasticity; inappropriate contraction in most sphincters of the body such as those associated with spasmodic dysphonia, esophageal achalasia, chronic anal fissure, and vaginismus; eye movement disorders; other hyperkinetic disorders including tics and tremors; autonomic disorders such as hyperhidrosis; genitourinary disorders such as overactive and neurogenic bladder, non-bacterial prostatitis and benign prostatic hyperplasia; and aesthetically undesirable hyperfunctional facial lines. In addition, BoNT is being investigated for the control of the pain, and for the management of tension or migraine headaches and myofascial pain syndrome. BoNT injections have several advantages over drugs and surgical therapies in the management of intractable or chronic disease. Systemic pharmacologic effects are rare; permanent destruction of tissue does not occur. Graded degrees of relaxation may be achieved by varying the dose injected; most adverse effects are transient. Finally, patient acceptance is high. In this paper, clinical experience over the last years with BoNT in urological impaired patients will be illustrated. Moreover, this paper presents current data on the use of BoNT to treat pelvic floor disorders.
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PMID:Management of bladder, prostatic and pelvic floor disorders with botulinum neurotoxin. 1572 17

Botulinum toxin is becoming increasingly popular as the drug of choice for relief of spasticity in a wide range of conditions, from stroke to strabismus to vaginismus. Besides this role as spasticity reliever, several recent clinical reports claim that in stroke, cerebral palsy, spinal cord injury (SCI), and dystonias, BoTx brings about significant improvement in function--attributed to synaptic plasticity of the muscular afferents. The authors' research had shown that BoTx also generates synaptic plasticity in spinal alpha-motoneurons-interneurons. The article describes how BoTx facilitates relearning by Hebbian and Contrastive Hebbian modes and how it can be used as a neuro-relearning tool to enhance and hasten motor recovery in the aforementioned disorders.
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PMID:Botulinum toxin: from spasticity reliever to a neuromotor re-learning tool. 1616 50