Feeding and swallowing difficulties are quite common in infantile Pompe disease (12, 13). However, apart from few scattered single case reports (14, 15), poor attention has been generally paid to facial and bulbar symptoms in adult-onset Pompe disease and only recently few studies focused their attention on them (16-18). A vacuolar myopathy in genioglossus Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical and proximal esophagus has also been described through autopsy study in Pompe disease (19) Furthermore, according to a nationwide prospective observational study in adults with Pompe disease in Netherlands, bulbar muscle weakness was detected in about one quarter

of patients and was significantly associated with scapular winging (20). We report on 3 family members with atypical lateonset Pompe disease, characterized by bulbar symptoms, in particular swallowing difficulty and tongue weakness, clinically relevant in all our patients and requiring assisted ventilation. In patient 1 and 3 bulbar symptoms were reported as first symptoms and Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical in particular Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical patient 1 was first investigated elsewhere for disease of central nervous system. Patient 2 – presenting increased CK values – was asymptomatic for many years and presented bulbar symptoms only 5 years after the onset of lower limb weakness, confirming the great phenotypic variability of the disease. Patient 1 complained also

difficulty in moving lips; facial muscle involvement was confirmed by neurological

examination and electromyography. Tongue involvement with macroglossia – traditionally described in infants Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical with classic phenotype – was considered a rare finding in late-onset disease. However tongue weakness has been reported in 19 patients affected by late-onset Pompe disease (17), one third of them complaining for swallowing difficulties, such as impairment of oral bolus control, and not further investigated. In that Angiogenesis inhibitor series Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical tongue weakness was mild and only detected on neurological examination, being usually underestimated by the patients. On the contrary in our patients tongue weakness was more marked according to criteria established by Dubrovski and colleagues and reported as first symptom by patient 1. Furthermore tongue weakness had a main role in swallowing difficulties as showed by videofluoroscopy swallowing examination performed in our patients. Differently from data reported by Dubrovski and Thymidine kinase colleagues, all our patients displayed also tongue hypotrophy. As a matter of fact tongue involvement detected in our patients was also supported by facial CT and MRI findings in patients 1 and 2, respectively, that showed fatty degeneration, according to previously reported studies (16, 17). Recently Hobson- Webb and colleagues reported that 3/12 patients affected by late-onset Pompe disease showed oropharyngeal dysphagia, although none of them as first symptom (18).