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ORPHA:98959

Subepithelial mucinous corneal dystrophy

medium confidenceDisorder

Also known as: SMCD

Query health: suspect — Only one of 3 strategies returned hits (phrase).

Publications

13

26.3th percentile

Trials

0

Interventional, condition-specific

Researchers

92

Distinct authors in sample

Gene link

—

Readiness

2/6

Stages with a signal

Clinical definition (Orphanet)

Subepithelial mucinous corneal (SMCD) is a very rare form of superficial corneal characterized by frequent recurrent corneal erosions in the first decade of life, with loss of vision.

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 (1)

subepithelial mucinous corneal dystrophy

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

No specific-condition interventional trial, but broader-category trials exist — discuss eligibility with a clinician.

  1. Gene identifiedNot found

    No GenCC disease–gene assertion in this build

  2. LiteraturePresent

    13 matched papers (9 in last 10 years) Source

  3. Phenotype characterisedNot checked

    Not yet enriched from Monarch / HPO

  4. Animal modelNot checked

    Not yet enriched from Monarch / Alliance

  5. Orphan designationNot checked

    FDA/EMA orphan-drug designation not enriched yet

  6. Interventional trialPartial

    None under the specific name; 36 for broader category corneal dystrophy

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?

13

13 papers have ever been indexed 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.

13 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).

9 in the last 10 years · medium confidence · 26.3th percentile (publications denominator)

Phrase hits: 13 · MeSH hits: 0

Open Europe PMC search

Who's working on it?

92

Distinct author names in 13 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
    Lisch W3 papers · 2024

    Department of Ophthalmology, Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, Mainz, Germany.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  2. 02
    Bredrup C2 papers · 2024

    Department of Clinical Medicine, University of Bergen, Bergen, Norway.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  3. 03
    Busin M2 papers · 2024

    Department of Translational Medicine, University of Ferrara, Ferrara, Italy.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  4. 04
    Kim EK2 papers · 2024

    Corneal Dystrophy Research Institute, Yonsei University College of Medicine, Seoul, Korea.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  5. 05
    Klintworth GK2 papers · 2009

    Department of Ophthalmology, Duke University Medical Center, Durham, North Carolina, USA. klint001@mc.duke.edu

    Papers in Europe PMC
  6. 06
    Møller HU2 papers · 2024

    Department of Pediatric Ophthalmology, Aarhus University Hospital, Aarhus, Denmark.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  7. 07
    Munier FL2 papers · 2024

    Retinoblastoma and Oculogenetic Units, Jules-Gonin Eye Hospital and Fondation Asile des Aveugle, University of Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland; and.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  8. 08
    Rapuano CJ2 papers · 2024

    Cornea Service, Wills Eye Hospital, Sidney Kimmel Medical College at Thomas Jefferson University, Philadelphia, PA.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  9. 09
    Seitz B2 papers · 2024

    Department of Ophthalmology, Saarland University Medical Center, Homburg/Saar, Germany.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  10. 10
    Weiss JS2 papers · 2024

    Department of Ophthalmology, Kresge Eye Institute, Wayne State University School of Medicine, Detroit, MI 48201, USA. jweiss@med.wayne.edu

    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). 36 trials are registered for corneal dystrophy, the broader category — shown separately because they may or may not enrol this specific subtype.

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.

medium 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.

36 interventional trials matched corneal dystrophy, the broader category — listed below. Those studies are not counted in the condition-specific total.

Broader category: corneal dystrophy

36

Interventional trials for the parent category, exclusive of NCT IDs already counted above. Eligibility for this subtype is not guaranteed.

Worth raising with a clinician. How we count trials.

Recruiting under the broader category

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 2026-07-26

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.

"Subepithelial mucinous corneal dystrophy"

Run this search on Europe PMC

MeSH descriptor terms unioned into the query: Corneal Dystrophy, Subepithelial Mucinous

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

"Subepithelial mucinous corneal dystrophy" OR "Corneal Dystrophy, Subepithelial Mucinous" OR "epithelial and subepithelial corneal dystrophy" OR "superficial corneal dystrophy"

Recall-expansion terms: epithelial and subepithelial corneal dystrophy, superficial corneal dystrophy

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

Parent-category trials query:

"corneal dystrophy"

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

Run this search on ClinicalTrials.gov

Synonyms dropped by stoplist: SMCD

Confidence reasoning

  • Preferred label is multi-word and distinctive
  • 1 synonym(s) dropped by stoplist (may under-count)
  • No label/synonym collisions with other diseases in this corpus

Ingested 2026-07-27T05:47:34.823Z