Background: Recent short-term clinical trials in patients with Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy (DMD) have indicated greater disease variability in terms of progression than expected. In addition, as average life-expectancy increases, reliable data is required on clinical progression in the older DMD population. Objective: To determine the effects of corticosteroids on major clinical outcomes of DMD in a large multinational cohort of genetically confirmed DMD patients. Methods: In this cross-sectional study we analysed clinical data from 5345 genetically confirmed DMD patients from 31 countries held within the TREAT-NMD global DMD database. For analysis patients were categorised by corticosteroid background and further stratified by age. Results: Loss of ambulation in non-steroid treated patients was 10 years and in corticosteroid treated patients 13 years old (p = 0.0001). Corticosteroid treated patients were less likely to need scoliosis surgery (p < 0.001) or ventilatory support (p < 0.001) and there was a mild cardioprotective effect of corticosteroids in the patient population aged 20 years and older (p = 0.0035). Patients with a single deletion of exon 45 showed an increased survival in contrast to other single exon deletions. Conclusions: This study provides data on clinical outcomes ofDMDacross many healthcare settings and including a sizeable cohort of older patients. Our data confirm the benefits of corticosteroid treatment on ambulation, need for scoliosis surgery, ventilation and, to a lesser extent, cardiomyopathy. This study underlines the importance of data collection via patient registries and the critical role of multi-centre collaboration in the rare disease field.

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doi.org/10.3233/JND-170280, hdl.handle.net/1765/103181
Journal of Neuromuscular Diseases
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Erasmus MC: University Medical Center Rotterdam

Koeks, Z. (Zaïda), Bladen, C.L. (Catherine L.), Salgado, D., van Zwet, E., Pogoryelova, O. (Oksana), McMacken, G. (Grace), … Lochmüller, E. M. (2017). Clinical Outcomes in Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy: A Study of 5345 Patients from the TREAT-NMD DMD Global Database. Journal of Neuromuscular Diseases, 4(4), 293–306. doi:10.3233/JND-170280