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ORPHA:98974

Fuchs endothelial corneal dystrophy

low confidenceDisorder

Also known as: Endoepithelial corneal dystrophy · FECD · Late hereditary endothelial dystrophy

Publications

4,447

Trials

54

Interventional, condition-specific

Researchers

1,055

Distinct authors in sample

Gene link

LOXHD1, SLC9D1

Limited

Readiness

3/6

Stages with a signal

Clinical definition (Orphanet)

A disorder that is the most frequent form of posterior corneal and is characterized by excrescences on a thickened Descemet membrane (corneal guttae), generalized corneal edema, with gradually decreased visual acuity.

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 (3)

Fuchs endothelial dystrophy · corneal dystrophy, Fuchs endothelial · late hereditary endothelial 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.”

3/6 stages with a signal

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

  1. Gene identifiedPresent

    Limited — LOXHD1, SLC9D1

  2. LiteraturePresent

    4,447 matched papers (2,832 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 trialPresent

    54 matched on ClinicalTrials.gov (19 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?

Possibly — only limited evidence so far for LOXHD1, SLC9D1.

GenCC classification: Limited.

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?

4,447

4,447 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=5449) is 41.

4,447 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).

2,832 in the last 10 years · low confidence

Phrase hits: 4,447 · MeSH hits: 47

Open Europe PMC search

Who's working on it?

1,055

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
    Okumura N20 papers · 2026

    Department of Biomedical Engineering, Faculty of Life and Medical Sciences, Doshisha University, Kyotanabe, Japan.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  2. 02
    Koizumi N17 papers · 2026

    Department of Biomedical Engineering, Faculty of Life and Medical Sciences, Doshisha University, Kyotanabe, Japan.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  3. 03
    Schlötzer-Schrehardt U11 papers · 2026

    Department of Ophthalmology, University of Erlangen-Nürnberg, Erlangen, Germany.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  4. 04
    Kruse F10 papers · 2026

    Department of Ophthalmology, University of Erlangen-Nürnberg, Erlangen, Germany.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  5. 05
    Oie Y10 papers · 2026

    Department of Ophthalmology, Osaka University Graduate School of Medicine, Suita, Osaka, Japan.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  6. 06
    Tourtas T10 papers · 2026

    Department of Ophthalmology, University of Erlangen-Nürnberg, Erlangen, Germany.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  7. 07
    Gain P9 papers · 2026

    Laboratory of Biology, Engineering, and Imaging for Ophthalmology, BiiO, Jean Monnet University, Saint-Etienne, France.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  8. 08
    Hayashi T9 papers · 2026

    Department of Ophthalmology, Department of Visual Sciences, Nihon University School of Medicine, Tokyo, Japan.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  9. 09
    Thuret G9 papers · 2026

    Laboratory of Biology, Engineering, and Imaging for Ophthalmology, BiiO, Jean Monnet University, Saint-Etienne, France gilles.thuret@univ-st-etienne.fr.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  10. 10
    Li X8 papers · 2026

    Medical School of Chinese PLA, Chinese PLA General Hospital, Beijing, China.

    Papers in Europe PMC

Clinical research

Is a treatment being tested?

54

interventional trials for this specific condition

54 interventional trials matched this specific condition name; 19 currently recruiting in our sample. 16 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

54 interventional trials — more than 73% of diseases in the trials denominator have none at all (5114 of 7003; this disease is at the 97.2th percentile).

low confidence · 97.2th percentile (trials denominator)

Recruiting interventional trials

From the matched ClinicalTrials.gov set

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

Broader category: corneal dystrophy

16

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

Observational and natural-history studies

20 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

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.

"Fuchs endothelial corneal dystrophy" OR "Endoepithelial corneal dystrophy" OR "Late hereditary endothelial dystrophy" OR "Fuchs endothelial dystrophy" OR "corneal dystrophy, Fuchs endothelial"

Run this search on Europe PMC

MeSH descriptor terms unioned into the query: Fuchs' Endothelial Dystrophy

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

"Fuchs endothelial corneal dystrophy" OR "Endoepithelial corneal dystrophy" OR "Late hereditary endothelial dystrophy" OR "Fuchs endothelial dystrophy" OR "corneal dystrophy, Fuchs endothelial" OR "Fuchs' Endothelial Dystrophy" OR "LOXHD1" OR "SLC9D1"

Recall-expansion terms: LOXHD1, SLC9D1

Interventional trials matched via: both, 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: 54 interventional · 20 observational · 0 expanded access. Only interventional studies enter the trial headline.

Parent-category trials query:

"corneal dystrophy"

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

Run this search on ClinicalTrials.gov

Synonyms dropped by stoplist: FECD

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
  • Publication count (4447) is extremely high with unknown/missing prevalence — treat as possible over-matching, not proven research intensity

Ingested 2026-07-27T05:50:03.592Z