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Tracking Huntington's Disease Progression Using Motor, Functional, Cognitive, and Imaging Markers

Abeyasinghe PM, Long JD, Razi A, Pustina D, Paulsen JS, Tabrizi SJ, Poudel GR, Georgiou-Karistianis N

Movement disorders : official journal of the Movement Disorder Society, 2021

1,082 participants

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Potential therapeutic targets and clinical trials for Huntington's disease have grown immensely in the last decade. However, to improve clinical trial outcomes, there is a need to better characterize profiles of signs and symptoms across different epochs of the disease to improve selection of participants.

OBJECTIVE: The objective of the present study was to best distinguish longitudinal trajectories across different Huntington's disease progression groups.

METHODS: Clinical and morphometric imaging data from 1082 participants across IMAGE-HD, TRACK-HD, and PREDICT-HD studies were combined, with longitudinal times ranging between 1 and 10 years. Participants were classified into 4 groups using CAG and age product. Using multivariate linear mixed modeling, 63 combinations of markers were tested for their sensitivity in differentiating CAG and age product groups. Next, multivariate linear mixed modeling was applied to define the best combination of markers to track progression across individual CAG and age product groups.

RESULTS: Putamen and caudate volumes, individually and/or combined, were identified as the best variables to both differentiate CAG and age product groups and track progression within them. The model using only caudate volume best described advanced disease progression in the combined data set. Contrary to expectations, combining clinical markers and volumetric measures did not improve tracking longitudinal progression.

CONCLUSIONS: Monitoring…

How strong is the evidence?

Evidence Hub reads this as a cohort study, done in people. Its evidence level is 3 of 5 (Moderate · trial / cohort / secondary analysis). Trials without a large randomized design, cohorts and secondary analyses give moderate evidence. Reported size: 1,082 participants or records.

How the five levels of evidence work. The level is assigned automatically from the abstract and can be wrong, so check the paper.

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