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ORPHA:171617

Autosomal dominant spastic paraplegia type 38

high confidenceDisorder

Also known as: SPG38

Query health: suspect — Only one of 2 strategies returned hits (phrase).

Publications

24

32.6th percentile

Trials

0

Interventional, condition-specific

Researchers

109

Distinct authors in sample

Gene link

—

Readiness

2/6

Stages with a signal

Clinical definition (Orphanet)

A complex spastic paraplegia characterized by mild to severe lower limb spasticity, hyperreflexia, extensor plantar responses, impaired vibration sensation, pes cavus, and significant wasting and weakness of the small hand muscles. Temporal lobe and cognitive dysfunction have been also reported.

How rare: <1 / 1 000 000 — fewer than one in a million. In a city the size of Kolkata, that might mean on the order of fifteen people.

Orphanet entry

Cross-references

Joined from Mondo / Orphanet. MeSH labels may enter searches; UMLS / OMIM / NCIT are stored for reference.

Additional Mondo synonyms (2)

autosomal dominant spastic paraplegia type 38 · hereditary spastic paraplegia type 38

Research stages

Trial readiness signals

Where this condition sits on an open-data research pipeline — not how close a treatment is, and not medical advice. Empty stages often mean “not in these databases under this Mondo ID,” not “impossible.”

2/6 stages with a signal

Research-stage checklist from open sources (GenCC, literature, Monarch when enriched, ClinicalTrials.gov). Not a prognosis or care recommendation.

  1. Gene identifiedNot found

    No GenCC disease–gene assertion in this build

  2. LiteraturePresent

    24 matched papers (15 in last 10 years) Source

  3. Phenotype characterisedPresent

    39 HPO annotations (e.g. Pes cavus; Babinski sign; Lower limb spasticity) Source

  4. Animal modelNot found

    No Alliance genotype “model of” associations via Monarch for these Mondo IDs

  5. Orphan designationNot found

    No FDA or EMA orphan-drug designation matched this disease via UMLS or preferred name Source

  6. Interventional trialNot found

    No matched interventional trial under our ClinicalTrials.gov rules

Biology

Genes and phenotypes

Gene–disease validity from GenCC, plus phenotypes and animal models joined from Monarch Initiative via Mondo ID — not a clinical diagnosis aid.

Do we know what causes it?

Not yet — the cause hasn't been pinned down in GenCC.

No strong gene–disease assertion joined for this Orphanet entity.

Phenotypes (Monarch / HPO)

39

Associated phenotypes · MONDO:0012867

  • Pes cavus
  • Babinski sign
  • Lower limb spasticity
  • Hyperreflexia
  • Distal amyotrophy

Showing 5 of 39 — open Monarch for the full list.

Animal models (Monarch / Alliance)

None returned for this Mondo ID. Empty here is not proof that no model organism work exists under another name or gene.

Monarch fetch 2026-07-29

Therapies

Designations, candidates, and chemicals

FDA OOPD and EMA orphan designations, Open Targets clinical candidates, and CTD chemical associations via MyDisease.info. These never change the interventional-trial headline.

Orphan designation (FDA · EMA)

No designation matched this disease via UMLS or preferred name on the FDA OOPD mirror or EMA orphan register. Absence here is not proof that none exists under another wording.

Open Targets candidates

No drugs or clinical candidates returned for this Mondo ID on Open Targets.

CTD chemicals (MyDisease.info)

No CTD chemical associations returned for this Mondo ID.

Literature

Is anyone studying this?

24

24 papers have ever been published on this condition (under this name). For scale, breast cancer has over 700,000. Median papers in the last 10 years for a rare disease in this dataset (publications denominator n=3967) is 59.

24 papers since the earliest indexed year in this search — median last-10-year count for a rare disease in this dataset is 59 (publications denominator n=3967).

15 in the last 10 years · high confidence · 32.6th percentile (publications denominator)

Phrase hits: 24 · MeSH hits: 0

Open Europe PMC search

Who's working on it?

109

Distinct author names in 24 sampled papers — named people below.

Who's working on it?

No interventional trial matched this name; these authors publish on it in the sampled literature — a practical starting point for contact.

  1. 01
    Forman EM3 papers · 2018

    Department of Psychology, Drexel University, 3141 Chestnut Street, Suite 119, Philadelphia, PA, 19104, USA.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  2. 02
    Goldstein SP3 papers · 2018

    Department of Psychology, Drexel University, 3141 Chestnut Street, Suite 119, Philadelphia, PA, 19104, USA. spg38@drexel.edu.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  3. 03
    Butryn ML2 papers · 2018

    Drexel University, Department of Psychology, Stratton Hall, 3141 Chestnut Street, Philadelphia, PA 19104, United States. Electronic address: mlb34@drexel.edu.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  4. 04
    Orlacchio A2 papers · 2022

    Laboratorio di Neurogenetica, Centro Europeo di Ricerca sul Cervello (CERC), Istituto di Ricovero e Cura a Carattere Scientifico (IRCCS) Santa Lucia, 64 Via del Fosso di Fiorano, Rome 00143, Italy. a.orlacchio@hsantalucia.it

    Papers in Europe PMC
  5. 05
    Stevanin G2 papers · 2021

    Institut du Cerveau - Paris Brain Institute - ICM, Sorbonne Université, INSERM, CNRS, APHP, Paris, France.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  6. 06
    Zhang F2 papers · 2018

    Department of Psychology, Drexel University, 3141 Chestnut Street, Suite 119, Philadelphia, PA, 19104, USA.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  7. 07
    Zhang Y2 papers · 2026

    Department of Pediatric Neurology, The Affiliated Hospital of Qingdao University, Qingdao, Shandong, China.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  8. 08
    Ahmed AE1 paper · 2021

    Faculty of Medicine, University of Khartoum, Khartoum, Sudan.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  9. 09
    Arrigoni F1 paper · 2020

    Neuroimaging Lab, Scientific Institute, IRCCS E. Medea, Bosisio Parini, Italy.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  10. 10
    Baratto A1 paper · 2020

    Department of Radiology S. Maria dei Battuti Hospital-Conegliano, Treviso, Italy.

    Papers in Europe PMC

Clinical research

Is a treatment being tested?

0

interventional trials for this specific condition

No interventional trial testing a treatment matched this specific condition name on ClinicalTrials.gov (observational studies and pan-disease registries are listed separately when present).

Data as of 11 September 2026 · last trial check 11 September 2026

No matched interventional trials. This is true for 77.2% of diseases in the trials denominator (5501 of 7126). Here are the researchers publishing on it.

high confidence · 38.6th percentile (trials denominator)

Recruiting interventional trials

From the matched ClinicalTrials.gov set

No interventional trial testing a treatment was found for this specific condition name on ClinicalTrials.gov.

See who's working on it — people publishing on this disease are often the practical next contact when no trial is listed.

Other registries (secondary)

Broader net from EU CTIS, ISRCTN, and ICTRP when available — deduped against ClinicalTrials.gov IDs already counted above. Dual-model LLM relevance gates what we keep. These rows are not added to the interventional headline.

raw 0 · after dedupe 0 · already on CT.gov 0 · kept 0 · parent 0 · uncertain 0 · dropped 0 · fetched 2026-07-30

Source notes: ictrp: Error: ICTRP public search unavailable (WHO portal is SPA-only; SOAP needs partnership). Tried: https://apps.who.int/tri

No secondary-registry studies passed dual-model relevance for this condition name (after dedupe).

Where to find support

Condition-specific patient organisations, when Orphanet lists them, are on the disease’s Orphanet page. We also link umbrella groups that support undiagnosed and ultra-rare families.

Orphanet entry for Autosomal dominant spastic paraplegia type 38 — check Associations / patient organisations on that page.

India — NPRD

Last verified 2026-07-26

This ORPHAcode is not on our curated NPRD list (direct or Mondo-parent match). That does not decide clinical eligibility; families in India should ask a notified Centre of Excellence about current coverage.

Hand-curated for this project. ORPHAcode mappings are best-effort and may be incomplete or imprecise for umbrella categories. Parent (Mondo) matches mean the policy lists a broader category — confirm eligibility with a Centre of Excellence. Financial entitlements summarised from public policy statements and may change. This is not official government guidance.

How we counted this

Europe PMC query (preferred label + any corrected label + Orphanet and Mondo exact synonyms, stoplisted; unioned with resolved MeSH labels when available). UMLS / OMIM / NCIT cross-references are stored on the overview but are not added to the query string.

"Autosomal dominant spastic paraplegia type 38" OR "SPG38" OR "hereditary spastic paraplegia type 38"

Run this search on Europe PMC

MeSH descriptor terms unioned into the query: Spastic Paraplegia 38, Autosomal Dominant

ClinicalTrials.gov query (quoted phrases + MeSH via query.cond, plus recall-expansion terms when used):

"Autosomal dominant spastic paraplegia type 38" OR "SPG38" OR "hereditary spastic paraplegia type 38" OR "Spastic Paraplegia 38, Autosomal Dominant"

Study-type breakdown: 0 interventional · 0 observational · 0 expanded access. Only interventional studies enter the trial headline.

Query health: suspect — strategies attempted: phrase, mesh; with hits: phrase

Run this search on ClinicalTrials.gov

Confidence reasoning

  • Preferred label is multi-word and distinctive
  • No synonyms dropped by stoplist
  • No label/synonym collisions with other diseases in this corpus

Ingested 2026-07-27T08:40:14.946Z