ORPHA:586130
Sporadic fatal insomnia
Publications
174
66.3th percentile
Trials
0
Interventional, condition-specific
Researchers
863
Distinct authors in sample
Gene link
—
Readiness
1/6
Stages with a signal
Clinical definition (Orphanet)
A rare sporadic human prion disease characterized by adult onset of progredient neurodegeneration presenting as a combination of psychiatric, sleep, and oculomotor disturbances, with development of cognitive impairment (the predominantly affected cognitive domains being memory, temporal and/or spatial orientation, language, executive functions, and attention), postural instability, and sometimes additional motor abnormalities and autonomic hyperactivity, in the course of the disease. Bilateral thalamic hypometabolism on FDG-PET imaging and positive prion seeding activity in the cerebrospinal fluid are present in many cases. The disease is fatal within typically two to three years.
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.
Cross-references
Joined from Mondo / Orphanet. MeSH labels may enter searches; UMLS / OMIM / NCIT are stored for reference.
- MONDO:0035614
- UMLS:C5567889
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.”
1/6 stages with a signal
Research-stage checklist from open sources (GenCC, literature, Monarch when enriched, ClinicalTrials.gov). Not a prognosis or care recommendation.
- Gene identifiedNot found
No GenCC disease–gene assertion in this build
- LiteraturePresent
174 matched papers (100 in last 10 years) Source
- Phenotype characterisedNot checked
Not yet enriched from Monarch / HPO
- Animal modelNot checked
Not yet enriched from Monarch / Alliance
- Orphan designationNot checked
FDA/EMA orphan-drug designation not enriched yet
- 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)
Not enriched in this build — Monarch phenotype joins were not run for this record.
Animal models (Monarch / Alliance)
Not enriched in this build.
Literature
Is anyone studying this?
174
174 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=5449) is 41.
174 papers since the earliest indexed year in this search — median last-10-year count for a rare disease in this dataset is 41 (publications denominator n=5449).
100 in the last 10 years · high confidence · 66.3th percentile (publications denominator)
Phrase hits: 174 · MeSH hits: 0
Who's working on it?
863
Distinct author names in 174 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.
- 01Gambetti P21 papers · 2024
Institute of Pathology, Case Western Reserve University, and National Prion Disease Pathology Surveillance Center, 2085 Adelbert Road, Cleveland, OH 44106-4907, USA.
Papers in Europe PMC - 02Appleby BS19 papers · 2026
Department of Neurology, University Hospitals Cleveland Medical Center/Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio, USA.
Papers in Europe PMC - 03Parchi P18 papers · 2025
Dipartimento di Scienze Neurologiche, Università di Bologna, Bologna, Italy. hans.kretzschmar@med.uni-muenchen.de
Papers in Europe PMC - 04Cali I13 papers · 2026
Department of Pathology, School of Medicine, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH, USA. ixc20@case.edu.
Papers in Europe PMC - 05Schonberger LB12 papers · 2024
Division of High-Consequence Pathogens and Pathology, National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, GA, USA.
Papers in Europe PMC - 06Ironside JW10 papers · 2019
National CJD Research and Surveillance Unit, School of Molecular and Clinical Medicine, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK.
Papers in Europe PMC - 07Zou WQ10 papers · 2024
Department of Pathology, Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine, Cleveland, Ohio 4410, USA. wenquan.zou@case.edu
Papers in Europe PMC - 08Capellari S9 papers · 2025
Department of Biomedical and Neuromotor Sciences, University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy.
Papers in Europe PMC - 09Cohen ML9 papers · 2026
Department of Pathology, School of Medicine, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH, USA.
Papers in Europe PMC - 10Giaccone G9 papers · 2023
Neurology V - Neuropathology Unit, Fondazione IRCCS Istituto Neurologico Carlo Besta, Via Celoria 11, 20133, Milan, 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 27 July 2026
No matched interventional trials. This is true for 73% of diseases in the trials denominator (5114 of 7003). Here are the researchers publishing on it.
high confidence · 36.5th 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.
Where to find support
We do not yet link condition-specific patient organisations. These umbrella groups support undiagnosed and ultra-rare families:
India — NPRD
Last verified 2026-07-26This 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.
"Sporadic fatal insomnia"
ClinicalTrials.gov query (quoted phrases + MeSH via query.cond, plus recall-expansion terms when used):
"Sporadic fatal insomnia"
Study-type breakdown: 0 interventional · 0 observational · 0 expanded access. Only interventional studies enter the trial headline.
Query health: ok — strategies attempted: phrase; 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 2026-07-27T18:44:57.088Z