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ORPHA:765

Pyruvate dehydrogenase deficiency

low confidenceDisorder

Also known as: PDH · PDHC · Pyruvate dehydrogenase complex deficiency

Publications

1,318

Trials

4

Interventional, condition-specific

Researchers

1,215

Distinct authors in sample

Gene link

—

Readiness

5/6

Stages with a signal

Clinical definition (Orphanet)

Pyruvate dehydrogenase deficiency (PDHD) is a rare neurometabolic disorder characterized by a wide range of clinical signs with and neurological components of varying severity. Manifestations range from often fatal, severe, lactic to later-onset neurological disorders. Six subtypes related to the affected subunit of the PDH complex have been recognized with significant clinical overlap: PDHD due to E1-alpha, E1-beta, E2 and E3 deficiency, PDHD due to E3-binding protein deficiency, and PDH phosphatase deficiency.

How rare: How common this is has not been clearly measured.

Orphanet entry

Cross-references

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

Additional Mondo synonyms (4)

Pyruvate Dehydrogenase Complex Deficiency · pyruvate decarboxylase deficiency · pyruvate dehydrogenase complex deficiency · pyruvate dehydrogenase deficiency

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.”

5/6 stages with a signal

An interventional trial matched this condition name on ClinicalTrials.gov — see trials below.

  1. Gene identifiedNot found

    No GenCC disease–gene assertion in this build

  2. LiteraturePresent

    1,318 matched papers (620 in last 10 years) Source

  3. Phenotype characterisedPresent

    365 HPO annotations (e.g. Neurodevelopmental delay; Feeding difficulties; Microcephaly) Source

  4. Animal modelPresent

    2 genotype models (Danio rerio) Source

  5. Orphan designationPartial

    1 EMA designation (none yet with FDA orphan-indication approval) — e.g. sodium phenylbutyrate Source

  6. Interventional trialPresent

    4 matched on ClinicalTrials.gov (2 recruiting in sample)

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)

365

Associated phenotypes · MONDO:0019169

  • Neurodevelopmental delay
  • Feeding difficulties
  • Microcephaly
  • Hyperammonemia
  • Muscle spasm

Showing 5 of 365 — open Monarch for the full list.

Animal models (Monarch / Alliance)

2

Model associations linked to this Mondo ID

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)

1

Designation · no FDA orphan-indication approval yet

  • EMA sodium phenylbutyrateTreatment of pyruvate dehydrogenase complex deficiency · 11/11/2015 · PositiveEMA designation

Sources: FDA OOPD · EMA orphan designations

Open Targets candidates

4

Drugs / clinical candidates · MONDO_0019169

CTD chemicals (MyDisease.info)

No CTD chemical associations returned for this Mondo ID.

Literature

Is anyone studying this?

1,318

1,318 papers have been published on this condition. That is a real research literature — still far smaller than common diseases (breast cancer: over 700,000 papers). Median papers in the last 10 years for a rare disease in this dataset (publications denominator n=3967) is 59.

1,318 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).

620 in the last 10 years · low confidence

Phrase hits: 1,318 · MeSH hits: 0

Open Europe PMC search

Who's working on it?

1,215

Distinct author names in 200 sampled papers — named people below.

Who's working on it?

People publishing on this condition (sampled Europe PMC records). Affiliation is the most recent found in that sample.

  1. 01
    Li X4 papers · 2026

    Pediatric Neurology, Department of Pediatrics, Third Affiliated Hospital of Zhengzhou University, Zhengzhou, 450052, Henan, China.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  2. 02
    Rivera I4 papers · 2026

    Research Institute for Medicines (iMed.ULisboa) and Department of Biochemistry and Human Biology, Faculty of Pharmacy, Universidade de Lisboa, Lisbon, Portugal. Electronic address: iarivera@ff.ulisboa.pt.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  3. 03
    Alves C3 papers · 2025

    Department of Radiology, Boston Children's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  4. 04
    Bedoyan JK3 papers · 2024

    Departments of Genetics and Genome Sciences Case Western Reserve University (CWRU) Cleveland Ohio USA.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  5. 05
    Boutron A3 papers · 2016

    Department of Biochemistry, Hospital Bicêtre, Le Kremlin Bicêtre, France.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  6. 06
    Darin N3 papers · 2026

    Department of Pediatrics, Institute of Clinical Sciences, Sahlgrenska Academy, University of Gothenburg, Gothenburg, Sweden.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  7. 07
    De Lonlay P3 papers · 2026

    Reference Center of Inherited Metabolic Diseases, University Paris Descartes, Hospital Necker Enfants Malades, APHP, Paris, France. Electronic address: pascale.delonlay@nck.aphp.fr.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  8. 08
    Eklund EA3 papers · 2026

    Section for Pediatrics, Department of Clinical Sciences, Lund University, Lund, Sweden.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  9. 09
    Falk MJ3 papers · 2026

    Mitochondrial Medicine Frontier Program, Division of Human Genetics, Department of Pediatrics, Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

    Papers in Europe PMC
  10. 10
    Florindo C3 papers · 2023

    Research Institute for Medicines (iMed.ULisboa) and Department of Biochemistry and Human Biology, Faculty of Pharmacy, Universidade de Lisboa, Lisbon, Portugal.

    Papers in Europe PMC

Clinical research

Is a treatment being tested?

4

interventional trials for this specific condition

4 interventional trials matched this specific condition name; 2 currently recruiting in our sample.

Data as of 11 September 2026

4 interventional trials — more than 77.2% of diseases in the trials denominator have none at all (5501 of 7126; this disease is at the 88.1th percentile).

low confidence · 88.1th percentile (trials denominator)

Recruiting interventional trials

From the matched ClinicalTrials.gov set

4 interventional trials matched after quoted-phrase search and title/condition post-filter.

Observational and natural-history studies

2 observational studies match this condition. These do not test a treatment and are not counted in the interventional-trial headline, but they are genuine research: natural-history work often defines the endpoints needed for a future rare-disease trial, and families may be able to enroll.

Recruiting or not-yet-recruiting

Open the complete matched search on ClinicalTrials.gov

General rare disease registries you may be eligible for

These studies enroll across many rare conditions. They are not counted as evidence that anyone is studying this specific disease.

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 2 · after dedupe 2 · already on CT.gov 0 · kept 0 · parent 0 · uncertain 2 · dropped 0 · fetched 2026-07-29

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).

Uncertain / not reviewed (2)

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 Pyruvate dehydrogenase deficiency — 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.

"Pyruvate dehydrogenase deficiency" OR "Pyruvate dehydrogenase complex deficiency" OR "pyruvate decarboxylase deficiency"

Run this search on Europe PMC

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

"Pyruvate dehydrogenase deficiency" OR "Pyruvate dehydrogenase complex deficiency" OR "pyruvate decarboxylase deficiency"

Interventional trials matched via: phrase (mesh = registered under a MeSH descriptor no name phrase would catch; recall-expansion = gene / selected parent terms used only for trials).

Study-type breakdown: 4 interventional · 2 observational · 1 expanded access. Only interventional studies enter the trial headline.

Query health: ok — strategies attempted: phrase; with hits: phrase

Run this search on ClinicalTrials.gov

Synonyms dropped by stoplist: PDH; PDHC

Confidence reasoning

  • Preferred label is multi-word and distinctive
  • 2 synonym(s) dropped by stoplist (may under-count)
  • "pyruvate decarboxylase deficiency" also appears on ORPHA:79243
  • Publication count (1318) is extremely high with unknown/missing prevalence — treat as possible over-matching, not proven research intensity

Ingested 2026-07-26T15:16:22.150Z