Congenital Muscle Disease Study of Patient and Family Reported Medical Information

The Congenital Muscle Disease Patient and Proxy Reported Outcome Study (CMDPROS) is a longitudinal 10 year observational study to identify care and trend key care parameters and adverse events in the congenital muscle diseases using the Congenital Muscle Disease International Registry (CMDIR). The CMDIR registers individuals with and without genetic confirmation who have been given a clinical diagnosis of congenital muscular dystrophy, congenital myopathy, and congenital myasthenic syndrome, or myofibrillar myopathy, through the limb girdle/late onset spectrum.

Identifying care parameters and adverse events in the rare genetic neuromuscular diseases can be difficult. Care is fragmented, genetic confirmation may not be prioritized by the medical community or covered by medical insurance and patients are scattered globally with potential challenges aggregating data across centers. Natural history studies are currently being launched. However, potential biases to participation include recruitment of the less severely affected patients given difficulty traveling secondary to a medically fragile condition. There is currently no treatment for these conditions; though optimizing and standardizing care and care delivery can promote significant gains in quality of life and survival. Identifying disease specific care parameters and correlating those parameters with adverse event rates will not only contribute to the development of evidence based guidelines but inform clinically meaningful outcomes for future clinical trials.

Study hypothesis:

1. To use patient and proxy reported survey answers and medical reports to build a longitudinal care and outcomes database across the congenital muscle diseases.

2. To generate congenital muscle disease subtype specific adverse event rates and correlate with key care parameters.

Primary outcome is survival measured from date of birth to date of death. Primary outcome will be analyzed by congenital muscle disease subtype and maximal ambulatory status achieved.

Secondary outcomes include disease specific adverse event rates including rates of hospitalization, rates of antibiotic use, rates of pulmonary infections, pneumothorax, atelectasis, aspiration and adverse complaints including bloating, constipation, chest pain, dyspnea assessed by a validated breathing assessment, vomiting and nausea and difficulty eating. Patient and proxy hospitalization, pneumothorax and atelectasis reports will be confirmed by obtaining hospital discharge summaries. Additional secondary outcomes include ejection fraction (relevance subtype specific), forced vital capacity in liters, weight, Rapid Eye Movement (REM) sleep apnea hypopnea index and mean oxygen saturation during REM and total sleep study, age, gender, type of treatment center location (national referral center, tertiary care hospital, community hospital), gastrostomy tube, total number of fractures and Tscore/Zscore of hip and spine on DEXA scans.

Preliminary studies may focus on specific congenital muscle disease subtypes and use retrospective data collection through registry, survey monkey and telephone interviews to assess adverse event rates over last month and last year to limit recall bias. Prospective enrollment of same study participants over 12 months will assess monthly rates of adverse events and complaints. A preliminary study, CMD PROADE (Patient and Proxy Reported ADverse Event Rates) is planned in 2 congenital muscular dystrophy subtypes: Collagen 6 Myopathy and LAMA 2 Related CMD.

De-identified data from CMDIR will be made available for IRB approved natural history studies in the congenital muscle diseases.