Expanded-access Use of Elamipretide in a Newborn with Barth Syndrome: a Case Report

Background: Barth syndrome (BTHS) is a rare genetic disease, with no approved curative therapies, characterized by abnormally developed cardiolipin, resulting in mitochondrial dysfunction. Cardiomyopathy, a common clinical manifestation of BTHS, often appears in infancy. Elamipretide, an investigational drug that binds to cardiolipin on the inner mitochondrial membrane, leads to improved membrane stability, enhanced adenosine triphosphate production, and reduced reactive oxygen species. This patient case aims to further support elamipretide's role in treating BTHS infants.

Case Summary: We present an infant diagnosed with BTHS who demonstrated a moderately dilated left ventricle (LV) with an LV ejection fraction (LVEF) of 20% at birth. He was transferred to a tertiary children's hospital where he was intubated and administered medications for haemodynamic support. After several weeks, the patient was extubated and his LVEF improved, although still below normal. On day of life (DOL) 34, therapy with daily IV elamipretide (0.25 mg/kg increased to 0.5 mg/kg on DOL39) began, followed by standard-of-care oral heart failure medications. Subsequent echocardiograms demonstrated improvement of LVEF to near-normal levels. He was weaned off oxygen completely on DOL49 and discharged home on DOL61 on daily subcutaneous elamipretide 0.5 mg/kg and oral heart failure medications. His most recent echocardiogram showed improvement of LVEF to 60%.

Discussion: Our case suggests that elamipretide may have contributed to the improvement of LV function in this BTHS infant, supporting elamipretide's early use in BTHS. Our findings align with the previous studies in which elamipretide treatment demonstrated normalization of mitochondrial function and improvement in LV function.